Consequences of an Honest Enemy
by Bleedndreamz
Summary: What if Naruto chose to stay and fight Sasori instead of chasing off after Deidara and Gaara? A story where Sasori opts to give Naruto the cold honest truth about his shinobi training, then giving him the knowledge that allows him to redeem it.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Alright I recently went over the two chapters of this story. I didn't feel the story was bad, or particularly badly written. I just know it wasn't at it's best. Now that I have had a friend who was willing to beta the chapters of my stories, a lot of things have been corrected. So I am reposting, these chapters. As such, I must repost this brief intro to the story, that I try to do with all of my stories.

However in order not to spoil what happens in this chapter, I will be placing the AN at the bottom of the chapter. (Chapter ends at the bolded X's)

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The room was silent, the only sound around was that of the rolling pebbles and rocks coming off of the recently collapsed wall.

Naruto stood across from two obviously dangerous... men. The blonde one he questioned, he had more feminine features then he cared to count. Especially at a time like this, that was something he couldn't worry about. Hell, if he actually thought about it, he may even handicap himself. He disliked hitting women, could never bring himself to do it even if they were his enemies. Random girls had beaten him countless times, and he refused to defend himself from them. Of course after he got bruises from being beaten that badly, he wished he had defended himself. However that was beside the point.

He stood in a room, which in truth was just a large cave with two of his closest and most precious people. The first being his sensei who had been in his life since he was twelve. The other was his love interest, Sakura. She had bubblegum pink hair. A tingle shot through his body as he thought about her, of course that was before the pain came. She was infatuated with his former best friend. When he thought about it, it appeared many people were infatuated with his former best friend. Hell even his sensei went to the lengths of teaching him his original jutsu.

That thought made him frown and he quickly shook his head of his thoughts. If he got emotional he would surely loose focus. The steep price of losing focus in a battle more often then not was your life or someone else's. Naruto couldn't help it though. The thought trail bugged him to no end, he figured if he was going to split into groups he would rather stick with the old woman. He held no emotional attachments to her and at least if he... lost control again, he wouldn't have to worry about his friends being hurt.

Naruto peered across the cave to the two enemy shinobi and the unmoving object at their feet only to curse to himself.

'Son of a bitch... I tell myself to keep focus and then the moment I spot someone close to me dead on the ground and I want to smash their faces in and lose control...'

Naruto gritted his teeth at the sight of the Godaime Kazekage, the youngest Kage of his time, lying motionlessly behind the two shinobi at the back of the cave. With the silence he could make out clearly the blonde asking,

"Well... I wonder which one is the Jinchuuriki? Hmm."

Naruto wanted to burst out and just break loose right there. These shinobi, they hunted people like him. He could remember the times on his training trip with Jiraiya that they would need to redirect their path, or trail in order to throw off these shinobi. He could feel the whiskers on his cheeks get thicker, his chakra began to fly around, thankfully, still invisible. His hair got wilder and he growled out, "The Jinchuuriki is the boy behind you!" well he tried to growl it out. It had come out as a yell by the end of it.

Naruto calmly heard the wooden hunchback respond to his blonde accomplice, "Take a guess."

Naruto would of yelled for Gaara to get up, for him to fight back. However he knew it would be to no avail. His friend, the only person he knew that was like him was laying there dead. The most he could hope for would be bringing the body back in one piece.

He heard Kakashi speak to him from his left, "Naruto keep your emotions in check." Naruto nodded, but deep down he wondered why he didn't bother to tell Sakura. Did he really think he couldn't keep his emotions in check? What about Sakura, she was crying the day before in this retrieval mission.

The two missing nin shared a brief argument during his train of thought brought to him by Kakashi's statement.

The blonde Iwa missing ninja grinned at something and suddenly grinned before he had the giant clay bird grab the Kazekage then take to the skies. Naruto's eyes glared straight ahead at the puppet encased man.

Kakashi stared at Naruto for a moment rather surprised, he expected Naruto to jump up and head straight for Gaara. Chasing after the giant bird. Kakashi quickly shrugged, "Sakura with me!" before he ran off after Gaara. Sakura hesitated for a moment before handing Naruto two vials and whispering in his ear, "Antidotes, they will only work for three minutes so please be careful Naruto-kun."

The team split seemed like an easy choice for Kakashi. Sakura could easily heal any burns he or she may have received. Where he couldn't say he was an expert at taking down people from the air because he honestly couldn't say he battled many opponents in the air. He could say that he had a big enough jutsu arsenal to get the missing ninja grounded. Chiyo was an obvious choice, what was better than using a famed puppet master to predict the movements and attack patterns of another puppet master. Naruto was the hardest to place, he supposed Naruto could of gone with him. However with his mass shadow clones, he could likely just overrun Sasori with a larger force. That was far more then what he could say Naruto may have been able to do against air opponents.

Naruto glared at the ninja before him with a barely controlled rage. He wanted to burn that emotionless face of his. Naruto quickly injected the antidote into his body, he knew how his body worked. If he gained that antidote, his body would just continue to vaccinate it if it ever appeared in his system again. He learned that on his first C-Rank mission. He tossed the remaining vial to Chiyo whispering, "It will only stop poison for three minutes."

The wooden hunchback puppeteer shifted slightly in the back of the room. There is no way that antidote could possibly work? That would mean the girl would have found the remedy in around a day. That was highly doubtful.

Chiyo stepped forward, "Naruto, I'm here there is nothing for you to fear." She quickly sent a volley of Kunai in Sasori's direction. They impacted on his giant wooden body with the sound of sharp thuds sailing through the air of the near soundless cave.

A cold voice resonated from the suit as it shot a piercing gaze at the old woman and Jinchuuriki. If the puppet could show emotion, Naruto was sure it would be grinning when he said, "I always wondered how it would be having a Jinchuuriki in my collection."

Naruto's eyes narrowed, "What happened to needing us alive?"

The puppeteer gave a laugh that gave the two opposing quick chills, "You heard that did you? I suppose I am not supposed to kill you. However this opportunity is too good to pass up. Since you plan on fighting, and you made the first move. I believe it is time to show you my art." He said it smoothly, but his eyes under his outer puppet carapace had narrowed. They now knew that for at least one of them, he wasn't aiming to kill instantly.

The cloak covering him seemed to burst as his wooden body was revealed along with the giant face on the back sprouting it's serrated tongue.

Naruto heard Chiyo speak to him, "Be careful Naruto. This is Sasori's favorite puppet Hiruko. A puppeteer normally controls the puppet from behind it and leaves the puppeteer vulnerable to attacks. Sasori resides in that puppet. It is his shield and sword. This puppet is used to eliminate a puppeteer's main weakness. That armor has undergone various upgrades to be defensive while still keeping its offensive abilities such as that tail you see before you. Now I personally do not possess the destructive force needed to beat Hiruko, however that ability I saw you use on Itachi before will be more then enough." She tried to stay as hushed as possible when she spoke to Naruto.

Sasori had narrowed his eyes, the old bat talked far too loud for her own good. This boy had a technique strong enough to break through Hiruko? He remained unmoving, but the thought of losing one of his favorite puppets put him on edge.

Naruto eyed his opponent clenching his fists. Sasori was smart, and to think he was already going to have to use the Rasengan this early in a fight was rather serious. It was normally used as his make it or break it move. If an opponent survived one, he would power up another in which they would fall to. However, he was being forced to use it already. It was... not a good feeling.

"Make sure you avoid any traps he springs. Even so much as a scratch will leave you a good as dead on the ground boy!" Chiyo spat, Why couldn't she of been paired with that Sakura girl? At least that girl was a medic, she could have at least extracted the poison.

"The poison right?" Naruto concluded with a raised eyebrow. Chiyo could only nod, thus making Naruto grin.

"Yeah, I don't have to worry about that." he said quietly getting into a loose fighting stance kicking away several rocks in his way. Chiyo scowled slightly, what the hell did the kid mean he didn't have to worry about the poison? She was about to reprimand the boy for acting like an idiot in the heat of battle until she thought over the boy's circumstances. She had no idea how Gaara's body even operated as the one tailed Jinchuuriki, it was certainly stronger then the average human. If she couldn't understand the one tailed Jinchuuriki, there was no point in trying to question the boy who was the nine-tailed Jinchuuriki.

He felt strings suddenly latch onto him and Chiyo say quickly, "I will be guiding your movements Naruto to help you avoid the traps." Naruto quickly nodded and formed the most used seal in his arsenal.

Sasori growled out, "Are you done yet?" He was getting more frustrated by the second. He was a good shinobi, he would even call himself a skilled shinobi. Likely one of the best and most useful in his organization. The thing that was currently annoying him was how he fought. He fought using various traps, and surprises. Not to mention large-scale arrays of weapons flying at the opponent in no particular fashion. His organization called his partner's style destructive. They said that the bounty hunter's style was destructive? Ha, that was a joke. His weapons were coated in one of the deadliest poisons around, he didn't need to be precise with where he aimed his attacks. No more than point and shoot, every single senbon, kunai, sword, dagger, you name it that came out of his arsenal was deadly. Even if the weapon only pricked someone's toe.

Naruto grinned and his eyes opened wide with bits of Kyuubi's chakra pouring in, "First I will kill you, then I will kill your partner."

This seemed to get a rise out of the puppet master who shrugged shaking his entire puppet suit before lifting his head staring directly at Naruto, "Good luck." If this boy assumed that he could beat him with that old bat he was standing next to, he had another thing coming. He was an expert medic nin, puppeteer, seal master, he was well versed in genjutsu even though he didn't particularly need it. However his poisons were his true highlight, one silly prick and the boy would drop like a sack of potatoes.

Naruto charged forward with quick speeds, practically flying over the rocky ground below. He was dodging different stabs from Sasori's tail with the aid of Chiyo's expert knowledge from being a former puppeteer. Sasori didn't let Naruto's agility faze him. He was only dodging his attacks due to the help of the old woman, it was a good thing he had some surprises up his sleeve.

Sasori's mouth flew open and brought a straight on hail of kunai at the two of them when their running paths synchronized. This caused the two to jump apart once again, but not before two of Chiyo's strings attached to Naruto got cut.

As they closed in on Sasori, Chiyo yelled out "Boy! Be careful, some of the chakra strings were cut in that volley!" Naruto held back rolling his eyes. He knew that already, he felt that presence leave him the moment they were cut. Did she think he was mentally challenged or something? For a person that abused chakra as much as he did, you would think that people would give him the benefit of the doubt when it came to knowing when chakra was affecting him and when it wasn't. However to be a good teammate and just to get through the battle he gave a quick nod. He made his favorite seal and exploded into several clones.

Sasori under that giant puppet body of his cocked an eyebrow, 'I wonder how many of those he can make before he passes out.'

The clones rushed ahead with much sloppier movements then they previously had with Chiyo's guidance. It didn't take long for several of Naruto's clones to fall victim to Sasori's expert trap making skills. It was as if Sasori had years to prepare the traps for Naruto before he had even appeared in the cave.

The real Naruto landed from a jump only having to roll to the left in order to dodge a spray of fire from the mouth of the wooden scorpion.

Chiyo wanted to hiss in anger at the sight of how sloppy Naruto was. Simple traps like that should not of been able to catch him off guard, but they were able to. The boy most likely would run out of chakra by the time they even got to Sasori with the amount of chakra he is using... right?

Naruto was close and he was running out of things to use against Sasori. He didn't want to use the Rasengan as the first jutsu used offensively the entire battle. That was when it came to him.

Closing in on the wooden clad man he summoned five clones, one going head on, while the others attempted to flank him from all sides. However a puppet master of Sasori's skill had obviously had an attack such as this attempted on him in his years of combat. However instead of clones, his attackers had fallen victim to his poison and turned into puppets that now resided in his collection.

Sasori fought the urge to roll his eyes as this attack happened upon him. The clones got slaughtered quickly. Sasori's tail shot up from his back piercing the one trying to flank him from behind, then in a wide arc slashed at the ones coming at him from other sides spin around and prepare to pierce the one in mid air.

"Naruto! Get out of there! Sasori will destroy you!" Chiyo yelled frantically showing her old age.

Naruto's face split into a grin, causing a very rare thing to happen. Sasori's face of impassiveness slipped and he frowned, what was Naruto planning? Had he overlooked something?

Naruto in the air made three shadow clones and showed how honed his reflexes were. Sasori went in for the stab at the clone he assumed was the original only to realize the quick makings of a Kawarimi on Naruto's part. Naruto switched with the clone about to be attacked. The tail pierced through the substituted clone and allowed Naruto to push off the giant steel tail. He descended quickly to the ground only to bounce off and slide down under Sasori. It was impressive, the Puppet Master's reflexes weren't even able to do anything to an attack at this speed. His mouth opened just as Naruto slid under and nicked the body with several kunai.

Naruto then pulled one of his many surprises out of nowhere once again with a repeat of his fight with Gaara. He slapped several exploding notes on Sasori's under belly as he slid by. Once he was away from Sasori's underbelly he chanted one of his favorite, and most memorable plans he had in combat,

"Boom..." Suna ninja sure seemed to be rather unlucky when it came to fighting Uzumaki Naruto.

The puppets under body exploded and Sasori ejected himself to the right side of the cave. Chiyo stood by in awe at the quick planning on Naruto's part, and also in frustration knowing that he did that on his own. However that's when she noticed something off with Naruto's appearance... he was cut. She wasn't the only one to notice, Sasori did as well.

Sasori grinned, the boy was gutsy, he would give him that. However his poisons had affected him he would be dropping any moment now.

...

...

...

Sasori's eyes narrowed in recognition of a severe flaw in his battle strategy and it has a major weakness when employed against this Jinchuuriki - an over-reliance on poisons.

He had never found an opponent that could do such a thing, even if they were able to find an antidote to his entirely complex poison, the chances that they could produce it in an amount that would be useful was slim to none. However this boy could shrug off his poisons without a second thought. He never thought of it as much of a weakness till now. No one had ever survived his weapons coated with poison. They were designed to cause paralysis to create his human puppets, and at the very least kill them eventually. Even some of the Akatsuki's most prominent members wouldn't be able to do anything against his poisons. He would just shower the area with metal, rocks, crap particles if he really wanted to, coated in his poison would bring down the greatest of fighters. He could just shower areas full of kunai, senbon, and any other source of poison carrying material as much as possible because everything was a one shot kill as the poison made anything and everything lethal. The battle plan had always worked flawlessly, of course until he met Uzumaki Naruto. He could only hope that this didn't go and bite him in the ass.

Naruto slowly got onto his feet after being recoiled by being so close to the explosion. Any burns he may have gained from the explosion were already rapidly healing. He calmly examined Sasori from afar. He could hear Chiyo whisper to herself, "He hasn't aged since the day I last saw him."

Naruto however was able to pick up the sound of his movements. The wooden, hollow movements. He waved an arm over a seal on his wrist bringing forth a big puppet that hovered in mid air before him. The puppet looked human like, besides the lines on his face that clearly made it a point that he was a puppet with the casual lines used to open and close a mouth. He was covered in rags, his arms had various incisions as if they could open. While Naruto knew he had a good look at the puppet, he just wished he had a better one. Right now, all he could do was make assumptions about what the puppet could do.

'When you assume, you only make an ass out of you and me.' he thought dryly. Jiraiya had told him that when Naruto had caught him peeping in on a bathhouse. While Jiraiya tried to reason he was gathering information, Naruto knew it was complete crap. However the quote stuck with him.

Sasori looked at the remains of his puppet and frowned, it wasn't completely destroyed, just the bottom of it. He didn't really think anyone else would be crazy enough to slide under a deadly weapon that only laid a foot or so off the ground. It wasn't damaged beyond repair. While human puppets parts were hard to come by because... he was the only one who could make them. That on top of they were incredibly hard to repair, even for him. Still he had reason to repair him, and make him better. The boy had showed him that his battle strategy and one of his favorite puppets had a major weakness in them, When he got out of this battle he was definitely going to add some defense attachments to the belly of Hiruko. He did know one thing though: you can't escape the Iron Sand.

Chiyo gaped at the released puppet for a moment before recovering her composure, "The Third Kazekage..." she whispered to herself.

Oddly enough Naruto knew who that was. While he didn't like that Jiraiya spent the majority of his time spying in on women in the hot springs rather then training him. While they were on the road he gave him various information on the Kages. He found the Third Kazekage rather interesting since he was able to duplicate Gaara's sand however with metal, making it all the more effective and dangerous. The Third Kazekage was known for manipulating magnetic fields. The sheer thought of having that ability always wanted to send him into a fit of giggles. Of course, only during his alone time. He just couldn't get the image of fighting Lee in the Chuunin Exams, and raising his hand and throwing the bushy eye-browed boy around like a rag doll through the use of the ability and the weights the boy kept in his socks.

There were other Kages that interested him, such as the Sandaime Mizukage. Not so much because of the information that Jiraiya had on him, but more so because the lack of information on him. Jiraiya's spy network was vast, effective, and complete. He could gather all the Kages guilty pleasures if he wanted to but he couldn't even gather a single technique of the Third Mizukage. The only info that was publicly known about the Mizukage was that he was able to fend off the majority of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen. Several of them at the same time.

Chiyo shot a glance at Naruto who appeared as if he was examining the battlefield with the eyes of someone who had been fighting their entire life, Oh if only she knew. Chiyo quietly said to Naruto, "Be careful, I've never seen this puppet of his even if I know who it is. Be careful, the puppet is the Third Kazekage who is known for his Iron Sand that mimic's that of Gaara and Shukaku's sand."

Naruto shrugged, "Yeah I knew that. I'm not too worried, if it is not controlled as well as Gaara or Shukaku could control their sand then I'm not worried. I beat both of them." he finished as he narrowed his eyes at Sasori.

The glare he sent at the end of his statement made Chiyo fight down a shudder. She remembered that look. It was deja vu, the last time she saw that face it was on the Yondaime Hokage. The man was a genius, on and off the battlefield. He always had a calm and cheerful personality that was often showed when they would have the neutral Kage meetings. However she also recalled seeing him in the Kage meeting when he stopped smiling. Iwa had made a move to attack the man, the two best Iwa ninja were crushed, like annoying bugs. Just a test to his power, some ninja in the world considered some of the greatest were nothing to the Yondaime Hokage. The face she saw on this young blonde made her scared, weather it be the spitting image or the face of the blonde. For the first time in this entire fight, she no longer feared for Naruto... she feared for Sasori.

Sasori overheard Naruto's statement and frowned. He didn't completely like that prospect. He didn't expect to ever meet someone to face Shukaku and live, so he was able to count on them being surprised by the things he could do with the manipulation of Iron Sand. It was beginning to get frustrating fighting this Uzumaki. The things that normal people shouldn't have been able to shrug off, or shouldn't have any knowledge about. This boy seemed to always be one step ahead of everyone else.

Sasori decided to no longer waste time and the Kazekage flew forward, his wooden limbs crackling in the air. He usually preferred to use the unexpected against his enemies with the Kazekage. However if everything that was usually unexpected was already expected, then there was no real reason to be hesitant.

Chiyo reattached strings to Naruto as he launched an exploding note at the flying puppet with a short fuse forward.

The Kazekage glided to the right easily and extended his arm forward. Joints and incisions in his arm popped open revealing several series on intricate seals on flaps of his arms. The seals glowed for a moment before bursting forth with hundreds of hands.

Naruto made a dozen clones as he jumped back with one. Chiyo let go of the strings attached to the original Naruto and instead placed them along the 11 clones in front of the incoming hands.

Naruto held his hand behind him as he looked ahead at the hundred hands, this is what the Rasengan was for. To blow through things to his target. The clone behind him moved his hands rapidly over Naruto's forming a blue swirling sphere. Naruto proceeded to run forward with the Rasengan in hand, and shortly after Chiyo planned to follow.

Sasori noticed Chiyo's movements and glared, he decided to release his poison mist now. While the boy may not be affected, it would remove any visibility Chiyo had over the clones. She also wouldn't be able to go in and help, god knows that blasted woman could be troublesome if she needed to.

Naruto ran through the poison mist making a vacuum as he ran with his Rasengan held forward. The transition from purple mist to wooden hands was an easy one. He began to grind through the hands headed to the Kazekage until of course he felt it, pain. Pain shot through his limbs as several small senbon stabbed into his body from the hands. There was a two-part use for those hands. To trap them in the mist, or trap them in the hands themselves. Naruto walked right into the latter of the trap.

The clone running with him dispersed instantly, and his Rasengan died down. He had gotten close enough to the Kazekage where Sasori felt the need to detach the hands and let them fall on top of Naruto. No use attempting to utilize a broken tool.

Chiyo glared from where she was standing. She recognized the idea behind those hands, the idea was strikingly similar to one of her 10 legendary puppets. Upon seeing Naruto fall she was quick to move. She unsealed two puppets that Sasori immediately recognized as his mother and father.

Sasori began to release the Iron Sand from the Kazekage while releasing two puppets to fend off his parents. It wasn't hard, they didn't have any offensive surprises besides the blades he had attached onto them when he was younger.

Once all of the Iron Sand was released, the battle instantly turned into Sasori's favor. The ability to disable all puppets besides your own against a puppet user gave the wielder a ridiculous upper hand. However, this upper hand didn't last that long. A chakra spike burst forth from under the hundreds of broken hands.

Shooting out of the broken hands came something that resembled a flaming red porcupine. That was of course until all the senbon were pushed out by the red chakra revealing Naruto's form that was quickly becoming unscratched. Chiyo backed up a bit already having had a hard enough time keeping an eye out for Gaara to make sure he didn't kill any civilians. He was the one tailed Jinchuuriki, she decided that she was going to stand on the sidelines when the boy started to sprout three tails.

Naruto gave a feral groan as the Iron Sand began to shape spikes in the air. He squinted his eyes shut momentarily attempting to shut out the voices of the fox.

**"Remember the last time you had that taste of my power? One more tail gave you enough power to beat that hermit into submission you insolent boy! Release one more tail and you shall become the victor!"**

Naruto continued to grit his teeth and shake his head free of the thoughts until he could only hear a final whisper of the fox.

**"One day... you will call upon my power in your time of need when no one else can help you. To help your village? Your loved ones? Or yourself? When that time comes that you need my help to save the petulant pink haired banshee you admire... **_**you will be on your own**_**."**

Naruto tried to shake off the last part with the rage generating in his body. However he couldn't help but feel fear for a possible time he may not be able to protect the people he cared about, and having nothing to fall back on.

Iron rods shot down from the cave roof as Naruto darted forward. An Iron rod shot down right at his chest only to be batted away like a fly by one of his flailing red chakra tails. Iron rose out of the ground causing Naruto to leap and launch an arm forward with a roar. The arm extended and flew right at Sasori who side stepped with wide eyes. That was the first time he had heard of any chakra manipulation such as that. This was frustrating. He was skilled, he knew how to kill armies of shinobi. Yet here he was being pushed back by a single shinobi. A strong, over powered, Jinchuuriki of a shinobi, but a shinobi nonetheless. Why couldn't Hatake and that pink haired girl have stayed? He would have crippled their teamwork in seconds.

Naruto gave another leap causing the Kazekage to fall back to protect Sasori with a giant Iron shield that Naruto collided with.

Chiyo could only gape at the sidelines. She could see the power and speed behind the Jinchuuriki and could only thank the heavens that the Kyuubi attacked Konoha and got sealed in this boy instead of Gaara. Otherwise, she had no doubt in her mind that the sand village would be in ruins.

Sasori kept on having to fall back and cursed at the Jinchuuriki. This was the second time in his entire life he had ever felt this weak in combat. He honestly felt that this boy could re-grow a lung if he needed to in this state. The fact that the boy was batting away Iron rods annoyed him to no end, in addition to that any time he clawed at his wall of Iron any other human would be paralyzed. However this damn boy could claw, scratch, dry hump the wall for all he cared and would not be effected by the poisons of the wall made of his Iron Sand.

He idly wondered about attacking Chiyo, however at her current distance there was no point. She was nearly outside the cave she was so far away. To Sasori, it didn't really matter she could very well be in the Sand village right now for all he cared. He wouldn't be able to find the time to attack her with him constantly having to be on the defensive like this.

Sasori flicked explosive notes out onto the ceiling of the cave as well as several walls and tied them to chakra string. He jumped out into the center of the cave and formed an Iron dome around himself. Naruto attempted to follow suit after Sasori's sudden movement however moving at the speeds he was going it was too late. It would take too long to redirect his path in an instant and change his speed. The dome closed by filling in the last bits with Iron Sand effectively snipping the chakra strings Sasori tied to the explosive notes. The effect was instantaneous.

The cave now had a skylight. Rubble fell from the ceiling, hundreds of boulders that had to be dodged by the chakra enhanced shinobi. Chiyo had long stepped out of the cavern not wanting to be crushed by the boulders. She felt ashamed, with the way things were collapsing, the boy would likely die and she couldn't get to him. The entrance caved in, she contemplated running up the wall, but with Sasori placing explosive tags on them and detonating the walls. If one were to detonate while she was running up the wall she would be killed, or her limbs crushed at least. She rushed off to make her way around the battle on the outside of the cave, and would drop in from the skylight.

Sasori heard the rubble begin to stop falling and he let the Iron Sand dome fall around him only for his eyes to momentarily narrow. There was the boy, now more fox then before holding up a giant rock slab with one of his four tails. The black and red being with hollow eyes gave a large smile. Sasori retained his look of impassiveness, but prepared to unleash his prized technique.

Sasori sealed his Kazekage puppet and unsealed three large puppets, a snake, a toad, and a slug. He built them when he was younger inspired by Konoha's Sannin. The snake was by far the most advanced due to gaining excessive input from his former partner. That being said the slug and the toad both got their jobs done when they three worked together.

Sasori enjoyed using these puppets, however they were far easier to sacrifice and rebuild then others in his arsenal. The toad jumped forward, large blade ready.

Naruto shot his arm forward extending it at the leaping toad. He grabbed onto him in mid air and pulled himself towards the toad. He spun the toad around before it could get a stab at him, and the dagger was only able to slice at his arms. He launched the toad into the ground while still holding onto its body.

Sasori glared at Naruto, for once for a good reason. You can't change your trajectory in mid air, so he thought. He sent the large purple wooden snake at Naruto, attempting to bite him and pull him out of mid air. However his plan went south when a long arm shot forth out of Naruto's stomach and grasped the Manda puppet's face.

Sasori chose to just launch the slug at Naruto as a sacrifice for him to get a greater distance on the boy. He jumped back as Naruto effectively backhanded the slug into the ground, ooze seemed to seep out of the cracks of the puppet.

Sasori used a chakra string to quickly pull a scroll off his back and released it all the while opening his chest. Hundreds of puppets and strings shot out. He lost focus for a moment due to the release of all the chakra strings and their connections but was brought back by a loud scream.

Naruto was on his knees ripping at his head and gave a feral cry. It didn't take long for the boy to slowly return to his normal self, albeit with clothes being severely ripped. Sasori knew he could have taken that moment to kill the boy however... after this long it didn't seem fair and the boy intrigued him. He knew it was stupid, he knew he should have been looking for any advantage on a beast such as this. Yet... he couldn't bring himself for once in his life to take the advantage on his opponent.

Naruto soon stood up breathing heavily with Sasori standing a ways away staring at him blankly. Naruto panted out, "Why didn't you kill me?"

Sasori could only shrug at the statement, he honestly wasn't completely satisfied with his own answer, "You fascinate me," he said simply. Naruto frowned at that, he wasn't one to go along with most ninja codes however even he would of tried to capitalize on an opponent's disadvantage.

Naruto gazed up at the hundreds of puppets and calmly asked, "What is this." quickly regaining his composure and recovering from Kyuubi's forced withdrawal.

Sasori too gazed up, and while it didn't show the pride in his voice made it evident that he enjoyed this, "My secret, a performance of a hundred puppets."

Naruto glared at that and made his favorite seal, "While my ability is not a secret, it is the best thing I have." and with an explosion of smoke a good five hundred Naruto spawned forth in the open cave.

Sasori was impressed, he had never seen anything like that in his life time, and likely never would. He put his concentration on his strings of his puppets and prepared for the battle of his life, and his last battle of his life.

The battle rage on for what appeared hours was truly only minutes. Naruto's ability to continually replace dispelled clones eventually overwhelmed Sasori's puppets. None of the puppets were damaged beyond repair, except for a couple that were on the receiving end of two clones simultaneous fists.

The clones fought the battle to a point where Naruto could hold Sasori's limbs as he gazed down at the chest piece and head of the scorpion of the red sand. A stray kunai during battle had nicked Sasori's heart and it was only going to be a matter of time before he died. Chiyo was likely going to be here soon as well, she probably didn't expect the battle to be over so soon.

Sasori gazed up with an expressionless face, "So Uzumaki Naruto... you are an impressive fighter." he said. He didn't enjoy the fact that he had lost the battle, especially to a boy who had not even had four full years of battle experience. However, Sasori could deal with losing battles because he had yet to lose a war. When it came to wars, Sasori intended to die undefeated.

Naruto stared down at the man who looked as if he was trapped in a young boys body. "Hatake Kakashi must have taught you well, teaching you shadow clones and tactics such as these hasn't he?"

Naruto wanted to stay silent but scowled and couldn't help but slip out, "No, not really, he taught me tree climbing." annoyed with that idea seeing as how he taught Sasuke a jutsu that nearly got him killed.

Sasori continued, "A pity... Then Jiraiya of the Sannin must have done an excellent job? He must have told you the secret of the shadow clones and helped you advance your training correct? Don't look surprised, my spy network is far more advanced than your sensei's. I knew your every move Naruto, you just happened to surprise me."

Naruto hid his surprise well and thought back to what the shinobi had just said about the secret of shadow clones, "What secret?"

Sasori wanted to grin, "Oh you haven't heard? No one in Konoha has even told you? Didn't your senseis tell you that you could have been training year's worth of knowledge just by using your shadow clones? One such as you that can use them at this extent could have been using them to train and learn all sorts of things, especially ninja techniques."

Naruto clenched his fists but tried his best not to let his anger show, "It must have slipped their mind over the years, or thought I already knew. Tell me what is this secret." he finished through gritted teeth. If the puppet master was lying to him he would kill him now. Yet if he was being told the truth... he didn't know what he would do. The thought made him angry.

Sasori drawled out, "Oh you know, how the creator of the shadow clones is able to absorb and retain all knowledge that the shadow clones may gain. For example when you were learning tree climbing, you could have made a hundred clones to attempt to climb up a tree and when you dispelled them it would be as if you attempted to climb the tree a hundred times. A truly useful ability, it actually makes me wonder if they really wanted you to excel as a ninja due to them holding you back all this time. I mean my spy network was able to pick up easily that Kakashi had taught the young Uchiha all sorts of jutsu, especially his assassination technique the Chidori."

Naruto wanted to stomp the puppet master into the ground, however he couldn't. He couldn't because what he was saying was true. How could Konoha simply keep this information from him? They made him a Genin based on the fact that he could make these clones. The least they could do was tell him the full extent of the clones. Sure they could argue that he should have known the full extent of his own techniques... but really? They wouldn't have bothered to ask him why he wasn't at least training in that fashion when he obviously could abuse the training. Hell they hadn't taught him a damn thing, he had learned two jutsu since he had became a Genin. One was so situational that if he didn't want to flatten a small village, he couldn't even use it. Sure the summoning jutsu had other applications, but he wasn't able to learn those applications. Jiraiya didn't teach him. He spent his entire time with Jiraiya attempting to learn how to draw the fox's chakra when the fox was unwilling to part with it.

He growled to himself, it pissed him off to no end. They hadn't taught him a thing, and they didn't want to include him fully on the one useful thing he could do? He could have at least been reading books on things instead of just training his body.

True the training of his body did have some benefits, there was really only one other person he knew that was in better shape then him, which was Lee, and that was understandable. Lee was only able to be a ninja as long as he was in shape and could utilize taijutsu effectively.

Sasori stared blankly at Naruto and said, "By the expression on your face it would seem that you have not been told, or even received any decent training in your life. Your completely self taught?"

Naruto refused to give his enemy the satisfaction of knowing the for sure answer. However his face spoke louder then words as he stared down at the human puppet.

The puppet master gave out a raspy sigh and the seal over his heart glowed. Sasori gave a quick comment seeing Naruto get defensive, "Don't worry it is merely a gift to you, before that old hag comes." seals spread over Sasori's body, then collected in the side of his chest before pushing out a small metal box.

Naruto stared, "What is this?" he had a clone pick up the box and open it a good fifteen feet away from the two of them.

Sasori grinned, he was definitely winning the war, "I documented all my knowledge on puppeteering, even my secret techniques such as human puppetry. I documented how my puppets work, so if I were ever to be defeated my trade will forever continue. In truth it has far more than that, even some of my journals."

Naruto got handed the box by a clone and he rummaged through it, several scrolls inside. Sasori grinned inside allowing the emotion to show in his voice, "The remainder of my collection that is around 79 more puppets and The Third Kazekage got sealed into there as well when I sealed him when you were... acting interesting along with the knowledge."

Naruto fought back the urge to roll his eyes at the end of Sasori's sentence. Yes, a four tailed demon fox going ape-shit on your prized possessions, and you. Only he would find that interesting.

Sasori grinned, "If you can make storage seals, I would suggest you store everything in here that you can find, who knows what may be of use to you after I am gone. I do know that the old woman will likely take everything else back that she finds if you don't."

Naruto glanced around and ignored Sasori's side comment of "At least, that is if you were taught how to make storage seals." He produced thirty clones and then sent them off to seal everything they could within the next two minutes, and return to him.

Sasori felt his final seconds and gave a sigh, "Well it was interesting meeting a shinobi such as you Uzumaki Naruto. You should likely take my body as well, however kindly burry the heart." shortly after Sasori died. With one thought in mind, the legacy of the red sand would live on through Uzumaki Naruto... he had won the war.

Naruto frowned as he removed the heart from Sasori's body, and buried it. He sealed Sasori away and if anyone asks, Sasori's remains were deep inside the giant scorch mark from his earlier transformation. The clones came over and sealed the scrolls with random puppet parts in another scroll along with Sasori's box. Naruto then put the scroll in the absolute safest place, where no one from his team would feel they had a right to look... his underwear.

Naruto looked up when he saw shadows come into view from on the top of the cave's brand new skylight. He saw many Suna shinobi standing and in front of them all was a smiling Gaara with his arms crossed over his chest. At his sides were Naruto's own team and Gaara's siblings.

The people looking down into the cave could see the destruction that had been caused, and a giant scorch mark. They could only wonder what type of battle took place between Naruto and the famed Akasuna no Sasori.

Naruto did the only thing he could in his tired state, he waved at his friends before falling back to sit against the cave wall. It was a long way back to Konoha.

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Hello again, old readers, you will notice not a ton has changed. About 1-1.5k words have been added. It is merely more descriptive on the characters, and corrections have been made.

"

This story was inspired by reading Scorpion's Disciple somewhat. I never expected to be inspired as I was when I read something like Puppetmaster Naruto by serpentsannin, however I just did.

I found that the author of Scorpion's Disciple brought Sasori's character to life, and to an extent that was not even seen before in the Manga and is likely one of the best works of fanfiction I have read in a long time so he has my respect.

However I figured I couldn't just blatantly copy what has happened before with Naruto getting taken away from the village with Sasori like in Serpentsannin's story. Or Sasori coming to Konoha and training Naruto like in Scorpion's Disciple. Or the various spin offs around those two ideas, wether it be Naruto setting up a base of opperations in a random apartment in Konoha. Or... Naruto stumbling on Sasori's former workshop while he is younger.

The thing I found with these stories is they all had one thing in common. They all happen while Naruto is young and before time skip, so I decided to make a story based off a small what if.

What if Naruto stayed and battled Sasori during the Gaara rescue ark?

A simple concept, however if Sasori were to pry at the end of the battle and give Naruto the honest truth about his shinobi career, weather it be the lies people have told him or the things they have kept from him, or simply the training of his they have neglected. Then Sasori offered him a helping hand with his own knowledge? I was curious on what would happen, so I began to write and liked what I came up with. "

x

I wont press anymore seeing as how next chapter I will be reposting will have a bit more information. Right before I post the third chapter in the next hour.


	2. Waltz for the Moon

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

This chapter, unlike the last has had a scene completely reworked. So you actually have to read it(Sorry to all of the readers that have read this before, if you are curious, it was the Ino scene that had a total rework.)

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"This is... strange." said a masked man as he looked over the remains of a scarred battlefield. He sat on top of a rock while he rolled a pebble along his knuckles. He gazed over the gashes in rocks and the exploded rubble. He could paint a picture in his mind of everything that happened in the battle here by just examining the field. The chip off the left of the boulder thirty yards to the east of him was when one of Sasori's weaker puppets senbon grazed the upper eastern wall.

A tall fly trap of a man with two faces could only stare at the masked man wondering what he was thinking. "What do you think happened?"

The man continued to peer around through his mask, "Well this battle says that Sasori had easily lost. The problem is, Sasori wouldn't go out without at least using some of his puppets. However as you have noticed if you even took a moment to look around there aren't any."

The plant like man continued to stare at the person people claimed to be a fool in the Akatsuki with a deepening frown. "Perhaps Sunagakure took the puppets back with them to put them to use in their ranks?" The white side of the venus fly trap said.

The black side of his face scoffed, "Well we don't know that for sure now do we? How will we find out?"

The plant looked as if he was going to have a fight with himself before the masked man spoke up, "He's right. While I hate to admit it Sasori was able to create a spy network far larger then even Konoha's or in fact any other villages. That and he was able to maintain it for a fourth of the cost. I have never had a need for a spy network with Sasori around, and Pein doesn't have the connections to make a spy network of the calibur. If we wanted to find out what happened to the puppets we would have to hire someone else, which would not be beneficial at all."

The two faced man stood still, "What about Sasori's ring?" Behind the masked man his emotions slipped and he frowned. That was a problem, not one he couldn't work around, but it was still a problem.

The orange masked man stopped rolling a pebble along his hand and stared down. "Well, it is unfortunate. Although we can work around it in time."

The white side of the plant man cocked his head to the side, "I thought you were intending to join the Akatsuki no-" he was cut off quickly by the masked man who simply said, "Oh I intend to."

The black side of the face rolled its eye, "How do you intend to do that?"

The masked man gave out a chaotic laugh that lasted several moments before suddenly stopping, "Simple, Deidara died in his combat with Hatake and the pink haired apprentice of the Senju."

Zetsu once again looked confused, "What but we already checked if Deidara liv..." he stopped talking as he saw the man before him draw a kunai out of his coat. "You intend to kill him yourself..." the plant man realized. He didn't know what to say to that, betrayal in the Akatsuki was unheard of with how closely tied they all were together. Orochimaru was one of the biggest shocks they had in the last 19 years.

He calmly stared at the masked man who pushed himself up off the rocky ground almost asking for clarification of what he thought was going to happen. However the man began to disappear into blackness, and the only thing he was able to catch the man saying at the end was...

_"Tobi is a good boy!"_

Naruto sighed as he laid back on the bed he was sitting on. They were all staying in Suna for the night at the Kazekage's compound. It had been used by all the previous Kazekage's including Gaara. Naruto stayed silent looking up at the ceiling, he had just got done taking a shower. He had to share a room with Sakura because of how everyone had gotten sorted out into rooms. They were all going into pairs of twos.

Gai and Kakashi were going to share a room because if anything were to happen to Kakashi in his sleep, Gai would be right near by. Kakashi wasn't really being forthcoming on the effects of the extensive use of his new sharingan. The only visible effect they could really tell was chakra exhaustion.

Lee and Neji paired up to a room both being male teammates, it was easy for them to both share a room. Naruto was actually surprised seeing Neji so willing to spend additional time with Lee. While Naruto was impressed by the boy, and his will to work hard was admirable. He honestly thought if he spent additional time with either him or his sensei he would go crazy._ 'Guess Lee just rubbed off on Neji...'_ he thought to himself.

Temari and Tenten oddly enough were the quickest of everyone willing to share a room. He thought Tenten would despise Temari after the wind mistress given her an ass kicking during the chunin exams. However after a bit of prying for information he was able to gather that about a year after he left, they met up again in the chunin exams and hit it off pretty well. Their friendship only had room to grow after that point with Temari being the ambassador for Gaara when it came to Konoha and Suna relations.

So here he was sharing a room with his crush. Gaara never had a room since he had no reason to sleep, however he assumed that he would now be adopting one of the rooms in his expansive house since he was now allowed to sleep. Gaara had offered up Kankuro's room up to Naruto, although Naruto quickly declined. Naruto said it was because of the face paint and the dolls, it scared him. He didn't want to be touched when he slept. However in truth, he didn't want Kankuro to happen to just dig in his bag, and recognize a bunch of puppet materials courtesy of Sasori and then start asking questions. Him holding onto the Third Kazekage's corpse would also look extremely bad on his part, doubly so due to him being in Suna.

Sakura came into the room with her hair wet, smelling like bubblegum. She had on scarlet pajamas with teddies on them. Naruto looked amused, "Aren't ninjas supposed to be tough and dangerous? Not going to bed at night in silk pajamas with teddies on them?" he questioned with a raised eyebrow holding back a grin.

Sakura stuck out her tongue childishly, "I don't think they are supposed to go to bed with black and white night caps with eyes on them either Naruto."

Naruto wanted to protest before he stopped himself and said, "Point taken..." Sakura climbed into the bed next to him giving him the chance to inhale a large amount of her scent making himself sway. He caught himself by quickly laying back. He covered the smile on his face by saying, "Well the night cap is the first and only real gift I have ever gotten. Well besides this necklace." he motioned to the crystal hanging from his neck. "Although it wasn't really a gift, it was more me beating your sensei in a bet." he said with a grin.

Sakura only rolled her eyes at the last part, however she couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt when he told her about his only gift. How many times had he saved her life? Stood up for her? Just been genuinely nice to her. She looked back at all the times and continued to feel more and more guilty. As she grew older she found herself looking back on her life a lot. She cared a lot about Naruto, yet her entire childhood she treated him like crap. She hit him for no reason, continually turned him down.

She was foolish, she was chasing a boy that would always turn her down every day and yet she loved him. Although she knew how much the feeling of rejection hurt, and she as a kid felt the need to do the same to Naruto and in addition physically hurt him? She pulled her knees up to her chest under the covers until she heard Naruto cut in, "Forget it."

Her head shot up instantly when she heard Naruto say that, "Excuse me?" she quickly asked incredulously.

Naruto shook his head, "Whatever you are thinking about forget it, the past is the past, you can't change it. You can only try and correct yourself before hand for the future."

Sakura pursed her lips and wanted to blurt out a mouth full of apologies. She didn't trust her voice for the moment and she nodded. She tried to laugh it off saying, "Oh so now you are getting deep on me eh Naruto?"

Naruto shrugged, this didn't feel right to him. Here he was in bed next to the girl of his dreams, and there were many dreams. Yet here he was practically ignoring her, and this didn't go unnoticed by Sakura either."

"Hey Naruto is something wrong? Your quieter then usual." she said with a frowned. Naruto and quiet didn't mix. Sure she hadn't been around him long since he came back, however that wasn't the Naruto she knew.

Naruto really wanted to tell her that his mind was currently on the scrolls that Sasori had given him, and what he had said... but how could he? There was no way to say, "Hey Sakura, you know that S-Class missing ninja that nearly killed me the other day? Well yeah, before I took his body and all of his prized work, he told me what I now too believe to be the honest truth about my shinobi career." So he was stuck.

He decided to give her part of the truth, "Well it is just something Sasori told me before I killed him." he said quietly, however before Sakura could cut in and ask about what Sasori said he followed up saying, "But since when is me being quiet mean that something is wrong with me?" that quickly diffused any amount of tension that was built on Naruto's Sasori statement.

Sakura reached over him and poked him in this nose with a smile, "Well that just isn't that Naruto I know, thats all."

A sudden anger spiked in Naruto, one that forced him to blurt out something he didn't want to be said, "Yeah, well do you want me to continue acting like the laughing goof that you can beat up while you fawn over Sasu-" he caught himself by covering his mouth with his hand. He quickly swung himself over the side of the bed, "You know... I am going to sit over there and read." he quickly said grabing his bag and walking to a little area by a window where you can sit with cushions and read.

Sakura looked shocked something like that came from Naruto, she didn't know what to say to that. The truth hurts, and she knew it... she just never expected Naruto to stand up and tell her like that. Ino had always told her one of these days Naruto wouldn't stand for being abused by her. Fear crept up her from her stomach at the thought of Naruto wanting to leave because of her attitude. She rolled over to see Naruto reading a scroll in the light of a full moon and frowned. "Naruto..." she began, "I'm sorry for everything. I was foolish back then, I will make it up to you." she finished with a smile that caused Naruto to look up from his reading. She quickly added as an after thought, "That is my promise to you."

Naruto could only stare blankly, surprised by her statement. "Thank you Sakura-chan..." he finally said after he snapped back to reality. She smiled and closed her eyes and let exhaustion and sleep take her, however she did find it odd that Naruto muttered something before the passed out.

It sounded oddly like, _"Human Puppets."_

_Day later, Konoha_

Naruto had a constant frown on his face. Why he had this frown? It was simple, he had just found out something from Sasori's scrolls and he had no idea what he wanted to do about it. He peered down at the piece of paper in his hands as he sat in his room.

_To do list_

_Contact Y.K., find out information on Orochimaru._

_Go to Orochimaru's base, gather the Hokage bodies._

_If possible: Collect the Uchiha_

_Uchiha Sasuke: A rank Missing nin of Konoha.  
Current status: Capture alive  
Bounty: 550,000 Ryo  
Bonus payment: Per Semen sample, 100,000 ryo_

_Frequented locations: Unknown  
Possible Accomplices: Orochimaru of the Leaf(See S-Class Missing Ninja). Yakushi Kabuto of the Leaf._

_Known abilities:  
Chidori, assassination jutsu.  
Large array of Fire jutsu, including standard Uchiha fire jutsu(See clan jutsu)_

Below the to do list were several notes with bullet points, that look like they were written down quickly due to the sloppiness.

_likely now knows kenjutsu, summons snakes, knows more lightning jutsu, advanced genjutsu._

The more he read, the more he realized how far ahead Sasori had actually planned his life. Although, that was interesting he couldn't shake off the fact that the next week there was a chance to find Sasuke. The fact of the matter was, did he really want to? After talking to Sasori, he realized a great deal of his training as a shinobi was held back and part of it was to due with Sasuke. If Naruto brought him back... would his training become stunted again? He wasn't really in the mood to do things like finding Tora the cat, then being the only one in the team willing to grab him thus resulting in him being scratched up. He would have to fix his only jumpsuit every day after those missions.

He also felt he was growing closer to Sakura, the promise she gave him carried weight with him as well. He doesn't break his promises to her, why should she do so to him? However, she did say she loved Sasuke. If he were to bring him back, wouldn't that mean his chances with Sakura would be next to none and it would return to being like his old team.

He sighed, '_What should I do...'  
_

"Naruto, Sakura, Team Gai." The blonde Hokage addressed from behind her desk. "Tomorrow night, we are going to be hosting a... ball. The Kazekage and I have felt that after such an event has happened with him being captured that in order to increase the moral and to promote village relations, we should host a public event. Konoha has opted to host the first one, due to the recent attacks on Suna. If this succeeds, then Suna will be hosting the next event."

Talk about being right to the point.

Everyone nodded, it became fairly obvious to them why they are being told directly by the Hokage. They went on the mission, and defeated S-Class missing ninja to rescue the Kazekage.

"Now if you haven't caught on by now, the Kazekage has asked for you all specifically to be guests of honor. As such, This will be treated as an A-rank mission, and my apologies but due to this holding no danger, you are required to except or else face demotion." The blonde Kage said with a grin. However the black haired pig holding assistant behind her rolled her eyes and mutter something to herself.

Naruto frowned, he didn't know how to dance. A demotion didn't sound that bad either, going back to the academy the purposely dropping out. He could then actually leave the village, and forge his own path... seeing as how Konoha seemed to be always holding him back the past few years of his life.

"Tsunade..." Naruto began causing everyone to raise eyebrows at Naruto. Most knew of Naruto's blatant disrespect for authority, often calling the third a grandpa, one of the sannin a pervert, and the current Hokage a grandma. Everyone stayed silent as he continued, "What would happen to me if I chose not to show up, would I be demoted to an academy student?"

Tsunade looked at Naruto rather surprised he was even wondering about not showing up, "Why are you asking? Do you not want to go Naruto?"

Naruto frowned, "I don't know, answer my question and I will answer yours." The ninja in the room looked at Naruto rather surprised that he was talking to the Hokage like that, but stayed silent in fear of getting caught up in the possible punishment Naruto may gain for his actions.

"Yes... you would get demoted to an academy student Naruto, you would have to repeat the first six years, or test out of them." she looked on in wonder at why Naruto was even thinking of risking going back to the academy.

Naruto frowned, "So then what if I were to drop out of the academy after that, would I be a registered ninja? Or would I be registered as a civillian."

Tsunade paused for a moment before her eyes went wide, "Alright well then..." she coughed lightly into her hand, "The ball will be hosted later tonight once the Kazekage arrives. I expect you all to dress properly, you are dismissed... except you Naruto."

Everyone filed out of the room except Sakura who hung around by the doorway. Tsunade stared at her and said, "Sakura that includes you too." she told her with a frown.

Sakura quietly left the room and went outside, only to see Neji standing there with the Byakugan peering in.

Tsunade sighed, "Naruto why is it you want to become a civilian?"

Naruto danced around the idea of telling her about Sasori, and decided to give her a half truth, "Well during my battle with Sasori, I realized a lot of things. However after Sasori told me some stuff at the end of our battle, that I actually agreed with I have been doing some personal soul searching."

Tsunade stood up and walked around her desk asking, "Oh and what did he tell you?"

Naruto shrugged, "Just that essentially Konoha has been holding me back."

Tsunade smiled and laughed a bit, "Naruto, your like my little brother. You do realize that Missing Nins often try to get people to turn against their own. Look at what happened to Sasuke? Orochimaru probably told him the same thing."

Naruto frowned, "Yeah, but I was in the process of killing Sasori when he told me that." he said clearly annoyed at being compared to Sasuke. "The difference between me and Sasuke, is at least for me it is true."

Tsunade narrowed her eyes, "What do you mean by that Naruto?"

Naruto laughed, "If I was your younger brother wouldn't you know?" he said spitefully taking a stab at her idea of him being family to her yet her knowing nothing about him.

Tsunade frowned wondering what exactly happened on that mission. Sakura told her that he wasn't acting like himself.

"All my life the village has tried to hold me back. Ostracized me for something I couldn't control. I had to resort to stealing out of ladies purses just to put ramen cups on the table." He grit his teeth at that thought, "Did you even know that If I could afford it, I wouldn't have eaten ramen all my life and I wouldn't be as short as I am now."

He paused for a moment, "So I resorted to crime after crime, the villagers wished I would commit extortion, while others wished my mother got a fucking abortion." he ground his teeth.

"When I became a ninja I thought all the bullshit in the village would end, like I would get some honest respect. However, I couldn't. I stopped Gaara from flattening the village into a pancake during the chunin exams and then people give joint credit to both me and Sasuke. Thus the village obviously thinks Sasuke did all the work, while I was just on the side lines. I mean seriously, If anyone saw the battle, they would know I transformed into a giant nine tailed fox to protect the village not destroy it!" he finished with a yell momentarily out of breath.

"My teachers never bothered to teach me. Kakashi taught me tree walking, in a group alongside Sasuke and Sakura. He taught Sakura genjutsu, he taught Sasuke taijutsu, ninjutsu, and the chidori. He told me to work on chakra control, I didn't have enough for him to teach me anything. Odd part about that was, he never told me any chakra control exercises to even help me out. It is mind boggling that I am not dead yet." Tsunade frowned at that, she would be talking to Kakashi.

"Then there is your teammate, I was with him for three years, and he peeped in on bath houses all the time. The only thing he tried to teach me was pulling out chakra from the fox. However, he can't teach something that he has no clue about. So here is why I believe that Konoha is holding me back." He took a breath, effectively keeping Tsunade on the edge of her seat. Naruto noticed this and made it as long and drawn out as possible making Tsunade look like someone hoping they have the winning ticket for the lottery as the watch numbers play out on the screen.

"Sasori taught me more then Kakashi or Jiraiya did." Tsunade's breath hitched, that was not what she was expecting. "Sasori told me about the shadow clones retaining and transferring all information gathered back to the creator when dispelled , and how to use chakra strings to control kunai. The later is extremely effective with exploding notes on them." Okay the last part may of been a bit of a lie, Sasori indirectly taught him while he was reading his journals.

Tsunade frowned, she was not expecting that at all. She had to admit it was rather pathetic, it takes thirty seconds for a jounin to run down to the jutsu library before or after getting a mission, then giving it to a student if they want to focus the day on helping another student. At least then everyone is learning. It really seemed that Naruto got the short end of the stick when it came to training.

She was also disappointed in her teammate, she expect him to teach Naruto more then that. She now had someone with the potential to be the greatest ninja the world has every seen, question his allegiances to her village right in front of her.

"I was wondering if I would be a civilian because to be blunt, I would leave the village. I'd figure out my own way to do things. I wouldn't pose a threat to the village of course, but really? What is the point of me staying in a village that I am not wanted?" The conversation stopped as they heard a sniff from the back of the room. It was Shizune, Tsunade's assistant getting teary eyed.

Naruto's apathetic mask and occasional scowl slipped at the sight. He did care about these two, they were the first couple that had every been strictly truthful to him. Naruto sighed and walked over to Shizune who was doing a bad job of trying to cover up the fact that she was about to cry. He held out his arms which she quickly joined him in a hug.

Naruto stared at Tsunade who shook her head at the two. "Naruto... I can't let you go. I'm sorry, but I want you here because I care about you and even if I wanted you to go the council wouldn't let me get rid of you." Naruto sweat dropped at the last part.

He let go of Shizune gently, whose crying had stopped, "Well I will go... but I want to be able to take a couple days off after tonight for training."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow at that, "Pretty much three years of my shinobi career has been wasted, I plan to make up lost time."

Tsunade couldn't help but feel a bit guilty at that, she should have asked for constant updates from her teammate. She shook her head and quietly said, "Permission granted, your dismissed..."

Naruto nodded and walked to the door and before leaving mutter a quiet, "I'm sorry..." before exiting.

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Naruto sighed as he finally got home after the meeting. It when better then he expected, even though he felt that he took a lot of anger out on Tsunade. He had spent the majority of the day training with shadow clones. His goal was to become as proficient as possible with puppets as he could. He went a few miles out into the forest behind his apartment that was located near the outskirts of town. Now knowing the secret about shadow clones, it was easy for him to set up a perimeter three miles out, giving him just enough time to seal all of his stuff before he would get caught.

Puppeteering proved... difficult to be blunt. He was catching the hang of if with the use of so many clones that quickly. He found that the best method with shadow clones was to practice in fifteen minute increments before he resummoned clones. The reason for this was while he was practicing puppeteering, it was more so through the trial and error of his clones. Although, if he unsummoned them every fifteen minutes and then resummoned them. They would then hold all the correct knowledge of what worked, and what made the puppet opperate and what didn't.

What did he do? He sat back under a tree reading over Sasori's poison, Kazekage, Hiruko puppets. They all had interesting qualities about them, so interesting in fact that he unsealed the Kazekage and started to practice with him.

It was... failure. At least at the start. The problem was he didn't know a thing about puppeteering, so he actually felt like he was pulling strings at random. Sasori stated in his books addressing whoever his new disciple may be, while the Kazekage was a special puppet, most human puppets were not delicate by any means. The problem was that if they happened to get damaged, you can't repair them effectively. Naruto tinkered with the puppet for 10 minutes at a time, constantly improving as he dispelled his clones in increments of ten.

The smaller puppets that Sasori used for his red secret were becoming simpler and simpler as the day went by, he almost felt as if he was cheating with how fast he was learning. He found the Kazekage puppet would have been extremely challenging if it weren't for the step by step in depth details on how to control the puppet that were written down by Sasori. It seemed like this man couldn't live without having a disciple to carry on his trade. He idly wondered if he made this his trade, should he do the same?

While learning the how to use the Kazekage was becoming increasingly easy... Sasori himself was impossible. He could barely reassemble the man, let alone control him. He now realized how thankful he was for Sasori being so thorough. He tried tricks that he had learned off the other puppets and the Kazekage. Yes the most he could do was get Sasori to stand and make his wings spin. No movement, or anything of the sort, it was pretty pathetic.

Where he could learn how to make an iron wall of sand from a puppet he just started attempting to use in a matter of 6-7 hours, of course it not being exactly 6-7 hours, it was more around 6-7 thousand hours. Although still, he felt lame. Almost a years worth of work put in, and he couldn't get Sasori to move?

Naruto groaned, he guessed the feat was impressive. Learning to be a puppeteer essentially over night, regardless of how it was done. He frowned walking into the apartment, depressed with his accomplishment, he just hoped he would be able to get some progress tomorrow.

He got in and closed the door behind himself quietly before locking it. Naruto quickly secured his scrolls under a floor board below the kitchen counter. While he didn't think anyone would break in, especially after the landlord got the warning that the next time anyone broke into his apartment, it would be his fault. One time on his birthday the landlord had just given the keys to his apartment to a random stranger who ended up vandalizing his apartment, and destroying anything of value. The Third Hokage didn't take that very well, and made it very clear if anything like that were to happen again, Naruto would be owning the apartment complex. However he did feel that leaving such valuable information laying around, especially since he had yet to memorize it was an incredibly bad idea.

He walked to the living room and his heart sank, on his bed was a uniform looking outfit. Black with dark orange trim that followed the edges as well as the orange zipper down the front. It had a note attached to it saying,

_Should it prove hard for you to find something to wear due to the shop owners, I have made arrangements for you to have something else._

_My gift to you,_

_Gaara_

He was rather surprised that Gaara had given him a gift, even more so that he broke into his house. Although a constant frown was on his face at the implications, someone went into his house already today. He shook his head, '_I'll leave some clones here to study the scrolls while I'm gone, they can dispel if anyone even dares to come in. That way I will at least know the scroll are safe._'

With that thought in mind, Naruto went to freshen up and get off to the ball that he had to attend.

Naruto wasn't having that good of a time.

He looked up only to see the entire room dancing to ball room music. He had no idea how to do any of this stuff. He had one class when he was in the academy, he had no idea that he was ever going to use the skill. He frowned shinobi from both Konoha and Suna alike were having a good time dancing to the music.

There were many beautiful girls out on the dance floor, to him in particular were his friends. Not that he would say that to their faces, he was a bit shy even though he was loud some times. It was something he needed to work on, he doubted he would be able to call anyone besides Sakura beautiful to their face. Maybe Ayame... but they had been close their entire lives.

He noticed Gaara over in the corner and gained an amused smile. It was like Sasuke all over again, a bunch of girls were swarming his table asking him questions and wanting him to dance. At least Gaara wasn't a dick and completely ignored him. Although that didn't stop him from being a man of few words... sometimes harsh words. Gaara was never raised a people person. Gaara looked over to Naruto and caught his amused look and rolled his eyes, with the faintest smile on his face.

At least one jinchuriki made it in life...

Naruto looked around the room, he could see various food tables that lined the back of the room. Chefs from all over Konoha and Suna had their own little table and were making food on the spot. Whether it be the BBQ stand from Konoha, or a table for the stir fry from Suna. The food probably would have filled the room with an intoxicating smell if it werent for the windows, skylight and doors open. He could only grin as he spotted his favorite stand out of everything over there, Ichiraku Ramen. Sure it wasn't a delicacy to most people, but to him it was the best out of the bunch. However he was likely quite biased seeing as how he had been going there his entire life. He felt a bit bad that Ayame was being forced to work while everyone around her danced. From what he knew, she was rather outgoing and liked to have fun. She only appeared to be getting more and more stressed as the night went on. It was written all over her face.

Naruto watched Sakura and Ino both controlled the dance floor, with the help of other female ninja. It was quite a stunning sight as well, many pretty women from Suna, then Konoha's highlights such as Yuhi Kurenai. Sakura and Ino both seemed to make a competition out of getting the most dances out of different guys. Sakura with her recent fame of being the apprentice of Tsunade was leading, but only by one. Ino had the charisma and the flirtatious personality to get any guy to dance with her. He wondered what would happen if she tried to get Gaara to dance.

The thought of Gaara with a sour expression on his face as he tried to ball room dance with the most hyperactive kunoichi in Konoha was a funny thought. What is it with Konoha and hyperactive blondes?

Naruto leaned back against the wall and sipped his drink as he watch Ino and Sakura move onto dancing with Genin from their year. He was actually expecting Sakura to come get him first, he was her teammate and all. She went quickly to Neji while Ino when to Shikamaru. Dance after dance went by, which Naruto came to ignore seeing as how they didn't seem to want to dance with him. The idea hurt a bit, but he got over it. He had other things on his mind, such as his training and what not being done at his house.

He just chose the time to look up into the sky. They were in a dome like building, where the roof was able to pull apart revealing a glass ceiling. The large full moon beamed down on everyone as the music played, he bet girls found it extremely romantic.

The night carried on and Sakura and Ino came down to the final men in the room. It hurt... a lot when Sakura glanced right past him and then went on to go grab Lee off the dance floor. Adding salt to a wound, Lee had a crush on Sakura just like he did. That thought got him a bit jealous of the taijutsu prodigy.

Naruto sighed and sipped his drink again only to look up at the moon and see a shooting star. Naruto scowled, why the hell did he come again? He was forced to? No one said a word to him, no one noticed him. He could be training right now. He groaned at that thought and began to make his way to the door, out back. No reason to stick around in a place where nothing was happening.

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Naruto walked right past Teuchi and Ayame who were finishing up for the night. They were no longer serving ramen, they were just cleaning up the remaining tools. They pretty much had to move the majority of their stand and find a way to situate it on a rather small table. Quite a feat to be able to do that on practically a moments notice.

"Hey Naruto!" called out the old man cleaning up their table. Naruto turned around quickly when the man called his name. They were two of the people in his life that he could never bring himself to dislike or ignore. They have been with him all the way, and always supported him. "You didn't come and get any ramen today? How come." the owner of the ramen stand asked curiously.

Naruto walked over to their table with a small smile as he watched the two wipe down the table. "Well, I was hoping to get in a dance or something tonight. However, I'm not the most popular person in Konoha." he said with a bit of a laugh at the end. 'Aint that the truth?' he thought with a small scowl.

Teuchi looked at the boy and gave out a bark of a laugh. "Alright, hey you can go catch this last dance with Ayame." it was said with a laugh and a smile, but there was an underlying tone that told them that they had to.

Naruto gave a weak smile, this wasn't exactly the terms he wanted when it came to dancing. Being practically forced to dance by a girl's father. "Hey, I'm sorry but I don't really know how to dance." Naruto said lamely. Anything that could get him out of this. He had already spent the entire night watching everyone else around him have fun. Hell, that was his everyday life. There was no point to try and have fun in the last few minutes of the night, especially when he was ready to go.

"Nonsense! Ayame can teach you!" he boisted as he gently pushed his daughter out from behind the table and took the rag she was using from her.

Ayame stared at Naruto with a weak smile. It appeared that they were both on the same terms. They had known each other since they were both very young, it was already going to be awkward dancing with each other. Lets not add salt to a wound by going out there, the woman in a chef's outfit, and the male not knowing how to dance. That was a recipe for embarrassment.

"Dad, maybe some other time. We need to wrap up this table, and you are going to need help." She tried to convince him. "Besides, I'm not even dressed to be dancing right now." That was the truth. She had various broth splatters on her apron. She had her usual Ichiraku outfit on, and her white bandana over her hair. She didn't look like someone who came her to actually dance. She wasn't wearing any of the attire of someone who was going to dance either.

However her dad would hear none of it, and gently pushed the reluctant duo onto the dance floor.

If they didn't stick out like a sore thumb for the fact that Naruto didn't know how to dance, or Ayame wasn't dressed properly. They likely stuck out for other reasons, such as Ayame not being a ninja and it was all ninja on the dance floor. It didn't take a genius to tell that she wasn't a ninja, her form wasn't developed to be that of a ninja.

They both got out onto the dance floor, doing there best to stay near the center of the dance floor so no one would likely see them in the sea of people. However the center of the dance floor was close to the Rookie nine, and it was blatantly obvious that they had gained the looks of many people in the room. Naruto's standing in the village didn't help when it came to not being noticed either. He got attention, as did Ayame, even if it wasn't good attention.

Naruto sighed in displeasure as he put his hand on Ayame's side and took his other hand in hers. She then finished off by putting her hand on his shoulder.

They began to dance after spotting Ayame's father scrubbing a table, all the while motioning them to go on. Naruto's steps were much more shaky and jagged. She pulled him a bit in the dance which caused Naruto to bump into her and step on her toes.

It wasn't like they really had a choice in the matter when it came to the dance. If they stopped before the dance was over, her father would just push them back out onto the floor. Ayame loved her father, but he could be rather pushy when he wanted to be. Especially when he wanted to see her have fun.

She replaced the hands back to where they were, and they continued to dance.

They swayed awkwardly some more, before Ayame spun herself out for a moment, giving Naruto an unexpected whiplash which caused Naruto to bump right into her once again, at least this time not stepping on her toes. Ayame felt a bit bad, she thought this was embarrassing for herself? Naruto didn't even know how to dance, and she was practically having to lead him completely here. He was stumbling in front of all of his friends, hell even the boy who usually had the worst taste in fashion. The boy who wore green spandex, and had a bowl cut knew how to dance properly.

Naruto wanted to scream in frustration, he was making a fool out of himself in front of everyone. He began to walk off the dance floor only to his surprise, he felt Ayame grab his arm with both hands and pull him back on. "It will only make my dad mad." she said quickly with a frown on her face. In truth, they had now been out there for nearly a minute, even though it seemed much longer. However she couldn't help but want to get through the dance, and hopefully Naruto would catch on.

Naruto stared at her in surprise that she would stop him. He whispered quickly, "Than he will just be mad at me and not you. Come on this is ridiculous. We both know that I am utter garbage at this dancing stuff. I am stumbling all over you Ayame!"

She took his right hand with her and ignored his comment. They began to do a two stepped circle before coming back to the basic formation for the dance, with Naruto's hand on her side and hers on his shoulder.

Just when Naruto thought he was getting the hang of it as he looked down at his feet, they bumped into the pair next to them. The couple looked ready to fight, before he just glared and muttered about him being an asshole.

Many of the Rookie Nine that were no longer dancing looked on at Naruto's misfortune with a sad look on their faces. Ayame knew that Naruto was embarrassed with the constant stumbling, but they would get through this.

Ayame just sneered at the couple before returning her gaze to Naruto and genuinely smiled at him. Perhaps Naruto just needed the proper encouragement and knowing that someone was willing to take the time to teach him how to dance. For some reason, for Naruto that smile was all it took to give Naruto the confidence he needed to get this dance right. He knew there was a reason Ayame was one of the people close to him. She was a person who would constantly encourage him not to give up, even going as far to serving him extra and free food when it came to events like his Chunin exams.

They took each other's right hand once again and this time did a cross over similar to an X, before they switch places Ayame spinning as they did so only to lead into another cross over. They mimicked Ayame's spin as they switched places again, this time to let go of hands and take steps, almost like taking steps around a perimeter. At least in Naruto's eyes.

They came back together, Naruto taking Ayame's left hand in his right with their arms extended. Ayame then spun into towards Naruto only to spin back out, arms extended once more. She spun in once again, and went out, only to come back in for the final moment allowing her free hand to lace up with Naruto's. Ayame was impressed to say the least, Naruto had caught on in an instant after the smile she gave him. It was fun knowing that she was the one that taught him how to dance, or at least brought the skill out in him.

They were both blushing, with their faces being that close, it was actually rather comical seeing Ayame turn that red. It was a bit weird to be honest since they were so close, they were nearly family. However it was still rather funny. The least popular guy in Konoha, and a ramen chef dancing in the center of the dance floor designed to promote village relations. The added pops in the background of fireworks lighting off in the sky didn't serve to help at all. The both looked up at the fireworks, before looking back to one another. Colorful light danced down on them, each different then the next.

Naruto supposed that this was one of those times where you were supposed to kiss the girl. However him and Ayame were just friends, and he had too much on his mind to bother worrying about relationships with woman anyways. Ayame let go of Naruto and smiled. She gave him a hug and a quick peck on the cheek. It to be honest was rather embarrassing in the middle of the dance floor. Having a woman nearly five or six years older than you hug and kiss you in the middle of the dance floor. While it wasn't that big of an age gap, it was at least an eye raising one. However he knew that the reaction could have been far worse if he was a normal boy, and this was some civilian event. Ayame could have been in a lot of trouble, doing something like that around a bunch of adults.

It appeared not many had noticed the brief interaction between the two before Ayame quickly made her way over to help her father. The man was grinning like mad, almost as if he was being cupid for the day. Naruto could only shake his head with a laugh, 'Not quite old man, but thanks.' he said it to himself silently. It was an experience he likely wouldn't forget, and it was one he was happy about. Only the Rookie 9 and Gai's team that were watching, and Gaara who was keeping a keen eye on Naruto, even if he wasn't actively showing it.

However the kiss didn't sit well with Sakura, who walked off the dance floor after her song with Lee when she saw it happen under the light of the fireworks. She really wanted to yell, punch, and hurt Naruto for that. Really, anything to get back at him for it. Although she knew in truth that the fact of the matter was that they were all growing older. Naruto wasn't going to sit around and just wait for her all of his life, especially when she was chasing his best friend. The problem was, she felt that she may of made the wrong choice. She had already made a wrong choice tonight. She knew Naruto was here, he had to of been here. She could of danced with him all night, it was her fault that she hadn't. She shouldn't have overlooked him, or in the least, she shouldn't be mad at the fact that Naruto at least got one dance in with another girl.

Words that her Sensei, Tsunade told her two years ago during their training, just now hit home. It hurt, and Sakura didn't like it one bit.

_"If you spend all of your time looking up at the castle in the sky, you'll miss the world around you."_

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I've gotten reviews that said they loved the dance scene between Naruto and Ino, and I'm afraid I needed to change it. I had to rethink where I wanted to take this story. It is very fun to write, and you guys will be in for a surprise in the fourth chapter as well.

Why I needed to change it: Ino the more I went over the story, the more I realized that she wouldn't have been as useful as I wanted/originally intended. She was going to be the main pairing for Naruto, however with some input from someone, whom I actually agree with... I felt that I went to fast with their relationship. While I agree with how I made Ino in a sense, I also can see how she was depicted in a light that made her appear extremely shallow.

So I picked a character that I thought had a lot of potential. I think you will all be surprised with how much latent potential for story material I can pull out of Ayame without making her completely OC or turning her into a Ninja. I think you will find the way I shape her later on to be very interesting.

I'll be posting the next chapter tonight.


	3. Ain't No Rest For The Wicked

**Before you begin reading this chapter, please note that I have gone back and redone chapter 1 and 2. Chapter one has remained fairly the same, however is in greater detail, and has been Beta'd. Chapter two however I strongly urge you all to go back and read, SEEING AS HOW EVENTS HAVE CHANGED IN CHAPTER 2 particularly the dance scene.**

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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Naruto sighed as he gently allowed himself to wade through the water to the other side of the hot spring. He was beginning to regret mentioning the spy meeting that was mentioned in Sasori's journals. He had told the Hokage about it after he took another day after the ball to train. He had made far more progress that day then he had previously. He already grasped the concept of manipulating puppets the second day. Spending a full day from five in the morning till one in the morning the next day. All the while using the same previous method he got a lot done. He had used more clones this time around, probably a bit more than a thousand. Was it draining? Hell yeah. Was it worth it? Without a doubt.

He had officially made up the three year training trip he went on with Jiraiya that was pretty much wasted, and then a bit extra. His training had been more diversed as well. He wouldn't say he mastered puppeteering by any means, however he had learned a lot. He was able to find out that Sasori, he himself as a puppet was not designed to be controlled. So he would need to personally go in sometime and fix up the body to be a usable puppet. He found out as he read more that Sasori was quite a well versed medic ninja. Naruto wasn't able to learn much in that department. He had nothing to dissect, he was only able to learn how to heal up the smallest cuts. Learning medical jutsu had been probably the dumbest, and one of the most painful things he had done in his life. He didn't have anything to work on, so he just used his own body. However his cuts would often times seal up before he got to practice on them. So he found himself sitting there for at least a good few hours with a kunai, making deep cuts into his skin, and practicing on sealing them up before they sealed up naturally.

That was probably the most displeasing thing, yet necessary thing he had to teach himself through the course of the day. One of the more interesting things was how Sasori made his poison. It was extremely unique in Naruto's opinion. Sasori considered it unable to be cured. He considered this for multiple reasons however. One was that, his opponents usually never escaped him in combat. They would die with the poison in their system. To Naruto's knowledge, Sakura was the only one who had been able to find a cure to the poison. However the unique thing in his opinion about the poison was how... thrown together it was. Sasori really just picked a whole bunch of deadly poisons, four to be precise and combined them together until they became extremely lethal doses. Then the poison was extremely hard to cure for the fact that, instead of finding just one cure. You would need to find four, and mesh them all together into a perfect compound. Then on top of it, the poison was extremely adaptable. If a cure for his poison was ever found, all he would have to do was change the amounts put in of the current poisons he had to make up his personal poison. Or better yet, he could just toss in a fifth poison to the compound, forcing a completely new antidote to be found.

Naruto was proud about his puppeteering skills. Sure he hadn't learned how to control a hundred puppets at once, without the help of shadow clones at least. However he had learned how to control ten puppets at once. That, while not even close to Sasori's skill, he considered it a feat.

He had also perfected the Kazekage to an extent greater than Sasori had, at least he liked to think. Sasori was unique, being a puppet made of wood, he could withstand his own poison. However, if his puppet body ever became injured, or broken, then that body itself lost ability and use until it was repaired. Naruto on the other hand could withstand the poison. Yet, when he got injured, he would just rapidly heal. So he could mimic Sasori's ability of raining poison coated metallic pipes down, but at the same time he could run with the Kazekage and pursue the enemy. The Kazekage puppet made the perfect trap. If he had time to set up before an enemy came, he could just layer the area with tiny grains of metal. His enemy walks straight onto the metal, and suddenly had to focus on spikes suddenly protruding from the ground. Naruto could go in and then just back the enemy into a corner, and... stab. Game over.

Of course this was all in theory with various drills he had done with a clone or two. The style in theory was effective, however he had no idea how it would work against someone like Shikamaru who liked to think several steps ahead. Still... a puppetmaster running and fighting with his own puppet was a surprise in it's own right. Naruto knew he already had the element of surprise when he was using his prize possession, which was now the Third Kazakage.

There were other puppets that Naruto had gotten used to, for example, Hiruko. Hiruko was a interesting puppet, and Naruto could definitely see the uses in such a puppet. It virtually stopped all projectiles, and provided a solid defense. Naruto however wasn't a huge fan of the puppet. It gave him a rather large blind spot, and it was slow and clunky. It was useful for Sasori, who could just use the puppet to take out the various weak shinobi he would come across. Or use it as a way to stall for time, while he calculated his steps in the battle. Naruto found it more useful to just be outside of Hiruko controlling five or so human puppets if he wanted to stall. Especially if he wanted to end battles quickly, just rig the puppets with senbon. Large array of needles firing out rapidly, adopting Sasori's style of "point and shoot." every hit being fatal. He could understand deflecting three or so senbon, most shinobi could do that. However, deflecting thirty? Fifty? Eighty? It was highly doubtful.

Still, he had fixed the belly of Hiruko, but not before protecting the flaw in it's defense that he had exploited previously. He made it so with a flick of the wrist, spikes would stab downward from the belly, utterly crushing whatever was under it. Of course, he couldn't let any single form of weaponry or defense in his arsenal be without his special poison coating.

He felt bad for a second. Only a second, at the thought that he had likely progressed in the skill of puppeteering in just two days that Kankuro had been trying to do since he was a kid. Naruto could only shrug off the thought though whenever it came to mind, he technically learned from the very best. If you learn from the very best, you are usually destined for success. Of course me made time to note that Kakashi and Jiraiya didn't count, but Sasori was his sensei even in death.

There were various things that he should have taken time to learn from the books, but he felt mastering puppeteering was at the top of his list. For example Sasori was pretty good at Genjutsu. Naruto could only assume that he hadn't had the time to execute a genjutsu on him during their battle. Naruto skipped over that because he knew he would have a horrible time trying to do genjutsu. Besides, he could usually shrug off genjutsu anyways. Genjutsu effects the body, and the chakra. However if you have two chakra supplies that can mingle, most genjutsu fail to work.

The thought of how much he had learned, and how skilled he was able to become in such a short time through the use of shadow clones brought a smile to his face. However there were some things he couldn't help but regret. He spent so much time going over Sasori's books and journals, even Sasori's thoughts. Oddly enough he felt like part of him died inside as he delved into Sasori's secrets. His "sensei" was known for killing the Third Kazekage, his act started a ninja war. The war gave Sasori the perfect cover and opportunity to focus on developing the world's greatest spy network. Through this spy network he was able to be informed of pretty much every activity in every village. Hell, from what he read his spy network was so advanced, that the Kages in Iwa and Kiri couldn't even pick their noses without Sasori knowing.

However Naruto couldn't help but grimace as he read. He learned how spy networks worked. Jiraiya had his own, he could travel into any nation without throwing off any alarm bells because of the books he wrote. He wasn't forceful, hell the man despite his perverted nature was liked by many people. I guess if Naruto wanted to be honest with himself, Jiraiya controlled his spy network treating everyone as equals. Sasori on the other hand. He manipulated, blocking memories of his spies. He ruled his spy network with force and fear. There was a lure of power to it that many were drawn into it. Sasori was far more powerful and dangerous than people really expected. Having close ties to multiple villages. He could probably economically cripple some villages.

Naruto paused at that thought. Alright maybe not cripple, but he could certainly cause a drawback on the nations. Through his spy network, he could certainly give a certain nation a bad reputation with missions or trade goods or what not. That nation would then suddenly see less and less clients and consumers from outside of the village. Thus they would gain less income, and have to cut back on virtually everything. If he did such a thing to a nation that had been in war a few years ago such as Kiri, Naruto wouldn't be surprised if he saw the nation fall.

The spy network was a touchy subject with Naruto. While it seemed great and amazing. With the death of Sasori, if he wanted to control the spy network, he would need to move in on everyone quickly and announce that he was in charge. This wouldn't be incredibly hard, from what Sasori had said in his journals, none of his spies had ever seen his face. Still... it made him nervous about the inevitable encounters. He also got stressed at the thought of trying to make it into Iwa, and other nations. Some cataclysmic event would have to happen before he could even set foot in Iwa looking as he does now.

Naruto sighed as he relaxed in the water and thought about his current situation. He had waded away from the two teammates he had currently. When he had told Tsunade about the spy that Sasori was supposed to encounter, and the chance to see Sasuke, Sakura had jumped at the chance. He had also promised her that he would bring Sasuke back. Even though he knew now from Sasori's journals that promises were jokes, and that real shinobi lie cheat and steal to get what they want, or what they need to get done. However, part of the old him was still in there, so when Tsunade said she would throw together a mission... he could only grin.

Tsunade threw together a team almost on the spot, and much to his displeasure. He was getting increasingly frustrated with every member of the team.

There was this boy named Sai, who had taken to attacking him in the middle of the street in front of the ramen stand. He just dodged the boy's ink animals that flew at him. They were in public and people were watching. God knows what type of shit would be said about him if he really fought back. So he took a page out of Sasori's book, not every battle has to be fought, and not ever battle has to be won. So Naruto dodged several tigers that ran at him down the street, before he cut into an alley where no one was. Then when they got in there, with expert precision he disposed of them. Of course before any more could come after them, he left. No one could catch him when it came to running away from something in the streets of Konoha. That was his game, he had been playing it since he was five. He was the star player of that game. So naturally, he hadn't needed to confront anymore ink animals after that.

The boy now sat in the water across from him, and seemingly made note of commenting on his cock whenever he could. Naruto yelled about it the first time it was mentioned in the spring. However when he heard the giggles of women on the other side of the spring, he calmed down. There was no reason to start a fight or whatever over someone feeling the need to comment on his penis every other sentence. He could just write them off as weird and carry on with his life, and one of many thoughts he had been getting lately.

The second addition wasn't in sight at the moment. In fact, she was just beyond the wall. His former classmate Yamanaka Ino. She had been chosen to come along as a last minute addition to the squad. They were supposed to interrogate the spy, and capture him alive. However Sakura proved herself a bit by making the suggestion of bringing Ino along, and having her go into the spies head right on the spot. Of course Ino wasn't the first choice for a delicate mission like this. It just so happened that she was the only choice for the mission seeing as how her father wasn't around at the time. So Ino was currently in the hot springs on the other side of the wall with Sakura.

The two girls had both taken to bothering him and asking him questions about him and Ayame. Could they not see how uncomfortable the two of them were out on the dance floor? It was frustrating to say the least, especially Ino who was a gossip queen. Which can be considered a good feat for a person, knowing what people are doing in Konoha could be considered something akin to a local spy network. However... it really wasn't that attractive with the way Ino went about getting information, which was practically pestering.

Sakura in turn had apologized about not asking him to dance, which he brushed off and said it was not a problem. Naruto of course held back a frown when he said that. In truth he did want to dance with Sakura, however saying so in front of Ino was bad news. It meant that everyone would know within twenty minutes of Ino being back inside of Konoha's walls.

The final member to the team was a man who went by the name of Tenzo. He was supposedly in Anbu, and worked with Kakashi. At least, from what he could tell by how he spoke of him. He did however surprise Naruto by seemingly pulling Mokuton ninjutsu out of his ass the first day he met him. He felt a bit bad about that, feeling that surprise was unbecoming of a shinobi, or so he read in Sasori's journals. You are supposed to expect the unexpected. However to be fair, Naruto was sure Sasori would have been surprised as well by a bloodline thought to be long dead. Hell Sasori would probably be thinking of the most effective way to kill Tenzo the second he had seen the ability. Hell it crossed Naruto's mind for a moment. Sasori was rubbing off on him. It was just that the ability such as Mokuton jutsu in a human puppet, along side the Kazekage... that would be a powerful duo.

That brought Naruto to one of his current predicaments. In Sasori's notes, it was specifically said that he should, or Sasori was going to grab the First and Second Hokage from Orochimaru's base. Then effectively turn them into human puppets. He would then have three extremely deadly tools, situational, but still deadly tools that he could use. I mean really, who would pass up the ability to have a tool that could effectively build a forest on a whim, or make man made lakes out of thin air.

However the more he thought about it, the more tricky it would be. Naruto would need to get into the base, and act as if he was searching for Sasuke, while searching for the bodies. This is of course while avoiding possible patrols, Orochimaru, hell even avoiding Sasuke. Perhaps the spy could help him find the bodies but... who knows. The spies name wasn't written down completely, just the letters Y.K. they were completely flying by his head. He browsed the bingo book and found hundreds of names with the initials Y.K. ranging from bandits to A-class missing nins.

A thought of course always crossed his mind whenever he went over this. What if he could kill Orochimaru? I mean... one prick of the skin would be all it would take. He saw Orochimaru fight, sure he was skilled, and he was fast... but the man couldn't use his arms. The man was likely a shadow of what he used to be, a shadow of his former prime. Naruto was sure that with a large scale array of senbon, or a bunch of Iron Sand darts he would be able to at least scratch the snake face.

I mean worst come to worst, he always had a beast to fall back on right?

Naruto sighed and stepped out of the hot springs and quietly said, "I'm going back to our hotel."

Once Naruto had left the vicinity, Tenzo couldn't help but continue to stare at where the boy was formerly. This was not the personality he had read about from the Hokage. Hell, the boy was notorious, but this wasn't the personality he had heard about countless times. That thought could only make him frown, and make more questions pop into his mind about the young jinchuriki.

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A couple hours later, Naruto spending time reading Sasori's countless journals. Whether they talk about his exploits from first person, medical ninjutsu, how to create human puppets. You name it, Naruto didn't care, he was reading it. He had became quite the adept reader over the course of these past few days. Having clones reading countless scrolls and journals, he for once actually found joy in reading.

Naruto quickly snapped a the black journal on how to convert puppets with bloodlines into human puppets. He had been reading over this constantly the past few days. The human puppet process was one that was not long or tedious, it was just a delicate process. Sasori has various accounts of getting a puppet up and running in thirty minutes, even some accounts being in the fifteen minute range. Naruto knew the more that he read that it would be in his best interest to utilize his practically endless chakra reserves and make clones when he encountered the bodies of the Hokage's right off the bat and then use them to help him speedily turn them into human puppets.

Naruto looked up as he put the book in his bag quickly as his new team walked into the room.

"Since when do you read Naruto? You never even read a page of the text books when you were in the academy." Ino asked with a raised eyebrow as she walked in the room and sat on the second bed in the room that had yet to be touched. Naruto could only stare blankly, 'Yep, I could definitely list a few reasons why I find Ino annoying.'

"Things change in three years Ino." Naruto said calmly. There was no reason to get into an argument about reading. Hell Ino would likely walk over and try to find out what he was reading if they argued about it. Naruto probably would have to mimic a line that Sai had told him earlier, and just take it to a literal sense 'Don't make me hit you.'

"Hey what are you all in here for?" Naruto asked cautiously. Once again Sasori was rubbing off on him. It wasn't in one's best interest to be cornered in a room full of shinobi. Naruto leaned back and opened a window with a small sigh. This of course puzzled many in the room, it was pretty damn cold outside. It was odd Naruto would want to pretty much remove any amount of heat he had in his room.

Everyone situated themselves, Sakura was sitting next to Ino on the spare bed in Naruto's room. Sai had taken to standing in the corner, while Tenzo sat down on the desk across from Sakura and Ino. "I gathered you all together because we needed to have a team meeting. I need to talk to you all about what is to be expected. I also need to know about Sasori. Naruto, your the only one who has seen Sasori with their own eyes."

The room suddenly got really thick. There was a sudden silence that washed over everyone in the room. Chiyo had left the scene of battle, and the battle was already done before she even got back. That meant Naruto had taken care of Sasori in a rather short time, but more than that. Naruto had defeated an S-class missing ninja. You don't just become a S-class ninja by stealing from old ladies. You become an S-class ninja through slaughter among other things.

To think Ino just made a comment about the said boy reading was practically a joke.

"Naruto I need you to tell me everything you know about Sasori, in full detail. I have pulled several documents on Sasori, but I will need more information on that. I need his style of speech, mannerisms, habits. Anything you can think of really. The spy is expecting Sasori to show up at the bridge, so I am going to go there disguised in a Henge as Sasori. You four will be there hidden to back me up if things go south." Tenzo eyed Naruto as he said this. It was a bit odd completely relying on someone else who was a lower rank then him for information. What if he couldn't give valuable information about him? What if they just went straight to fight. A bunch of scenarios had gone through his head, but he certainly didn't expect Naruto to say this.

"I want to be Sasori." The moment Naruto said it the room was once again filled with silence, and the tension was heavy. Why would Naruto want to openly throw himself in the line of fire? "I am the only one who has encountered Sasori, and my voice is far more like his than it is like any of yours." It was a bluff, however it was a bluff that was virtually impossible to find. They had no baseline, they didn't know what Sasori's voice actually sounded like. The only person who knew was Naruto, who were they to question his knowledge on a subject he obviously had superior knowledge on?

Tenzo pursed his lips, "Why is it that you want to fill in the roll of Sasori. I mean, if you sound more like him, than I can't argue with you there. That is definitely a bonus seeing as how a Henge does not alter the voice of the creator. Do you really think you will be able to keep your emotions in check when confronted with whoever the spy for Orochimaru may be?"

Naruto stared at him. There was underlying doubt in Tenzo's voice which only made him frown. The man didn't exactly believe in him and his ability to keep his own emotions in check. That was a bit frustrating, however that wouldn't have been a stretch if he had said that before he met Sasori. "I think I would be better suited to the role." Naruto said it sternly, holding his ground.

Naruto knew that this was completely risky, however if this spy was loyal to Sasori. Not to mention he must be a fairly good ninja to be able to stay under the radar and be alive while in the clutches of Orochimaru, he must be a fairly good shinobi. They could go to the bridge a day early, and Naruto could set up several traps. With the help of this supposed spy, Naruto would likely be able to get the jump on Orochimaru. One prick with a senbon would be all it would take.

Tenzo stared at Naruto, his face going into a frown. The boy had the look on his face that if he didn't get his way with this, he would just give him shit. If Naruto just gave him shit when it came to information on Sasori, his cover could be blown right off the bat. "Alright than Naruto, but what do you intend to do if you are found out? Your fighting style from what I have read is likely the exact opposite to that of Sasori's puppeteering."

Naruto resisted the urge to laugh, '_Oh if only they knew..._' Naruto thought to himself with a small smirk playing across his features. Naruto rolled his eyes a bit, "That wont happen." he said providing another bluff. "Sasori was known for using a mind controlling and blocking jutsu to control his spy network. Whoever the spy is will be loyal to Sasori." It was a partial truth. All except for the fact that the said jutsu had likely worn off by now. However he wouldn't let his team know about that. This was far too big of a opportunity to pass up.

Tenzo frowned, "Alright, what if the spy is followed? Then you are stuck in a puppet suit." Tenzo was confused. Who would want to put themselves right in the midst of danger?"

Naruto sighed he knew what he could say to finish the conversation. He could just say that he is just an "ordinary" child, with no really special talents. While Ino was a Yamanaka, Sakura was the medic apprentice of Tsunade, Sai was a skilled shinobi with a unique ability, and Tenzo can use Mokuton jutsu. Tenzo wouldn't be able to address that Naruto is special, that he was the container of Kyuubi without breaking the law. In truth besides that fact, Naruto was just an ordinary child. Nothing else was really special about him.

Naruto shurgged, "Just have some faith in me alright? I'll be fine." Okay, maybe he should have backed Tenzo into a corner. That was pretty lame.

Silence took over once again while the group waited for Tenzo's answer. It highly surprised everyone in the room, even Naruto when he nodded to Naruto. "Alright, fine. Kakashi must have taught you well, so I will trust you with this. However, we will be putting three one way headsets on you Naruto. We will be stepping in if things get dangerous alright?"

Naruto wanted to scowl when he heard Tenzo say that Kakashi trained him. That was so far from the truth, it was a complete joke. However, if Tenzo needed to think that in order for Naruto to pretend to be Sasori, than fine.

Sakura however wasn't too accepting of this, "Why is it that Naruto has to go? What if this is a trap or something?" Naruto wanted to snap at her when he saw her ask this. That was until he saw her face, it was full of worry. He thought that she didn't believe he was capable of doing this.

"I'll be fine Sakura don't worry." Naruto quickly said before Tenzo could respond.

Tenzo opened and closed his mouth a couple times before sighing. "Alright, well anyways the goal of this mission is to capture this spy alive. He could give us information to where Orochimaru and Sasuke are located." The tension in the room increased the moment Sasuke was mentioned.

"Once we have the spy detained, we will have Ino go through his head and find out everything he has learned since becoming a spy for Orochimaru. It would be best for us to find a secure area however before we attempt anything like that. So we will need to have detained the spy for awhile, and depending on his or her skill level, that could be just as hard if not harder than capturing him or her." Tenzo said it calmly, and slow so that he was sure everyone got the plan they intended to execute in the next couple days. "Anyways," he continued, "Since Naruto is going to go in first, we are going to be fighting in what I like to call the buddy system. The team will be split into pairs, one "buddy" will go in first followed by the second "buddy" for backup."

Ino looked ready to open her mouth, but Tenzo held up his hand and said, "And before you ask, no you can't decide the buddies. I will be doing that. The buddies will be Ino and Sai, and me with Sakura. Naruto will be solo seeing as how he is going to be playing Sasori."

Naruto held back a huge grin. Since he didn't have a buddy, and if they found the hideout. Than he could easily find the bodies. Well as easy as finding something in an enemy hideout was at least. He was just happy he wouldn't have anyone looking over his shoulder, or telling him to "Go this way! No go that way!" he didn't need to deal with that, especially when he would be mutilating the bodies of the Hokages. God knows what Sakura or Ino would say about that. He wouldn't be able to walk outside without being called a traitor, not like that isn't already the norm... but still, he doubted he would be able to look Tsunade in the eye again if she found out he had mutilated and used her grand fathers and grand uncle's bodies. God knows she probably already has severe problems with Orochimaru with that fact alone.

Naruto suddenly blocked out a lot that was going on when a thought popped into his head. It never crossed his mind until now, which annoyed Naruto a bit but at least he thought of it. What if he succeeded with defeating Orochimaru? Would he sell the body? Or would he make a human puppet out of it? The ability to utilize all jutsu out of a person who made it his life's goal to learn every ninjutsu? Who knows what sort of abilities that man has up his sleeve. On there other hand, Orochimaru's body alone would allow him to live a life where he was no longer struggling for money. Living as a shinobi isn't exactly that profitable. Where the real money lies as a shinobi is in the higher end missions. For example his mission to Snow country and rescuing a princess. You may get paid a standard A-rank for saving a country, however the princess that you saved may pay you ten times that amount for personally saving her life.

Naruto was snapped out of his thoughts when his name was called by Ino. "Hmm? Sorry wasn't paying attention."

Tenzo put his head in his hand and mumbled, "Naruto, tomorrow we are going to go through teamwork drills."

Naruto wanted to groan, he sure as hell didn't want to work with the black haired painter that continually made comments about his penis. Not to mention he would then be in close proximity with Ino, who would ask him about Ayame, and if there is something going on. "Err, no can do, have to practice for meeting the spy. You guys will just have to practice without me." Naruto said it quickly, and followed up with a yawn, "Anyways guys I'm tired, can I go to sleep now?"

Tenzo stared and crossed his arms, he didn't like the idea of Naruto not participating in the teamwork training, however there was some truth to what he said. He needed to work on impersonating Sasori, hell thats what he would be doing. He also wasn't assigned a partner, so who was he really supposed to practice with anyways? "Fine." he said calmly a bit of a scowl on his face due to Naruto not wanting to participate. Sure he had a reason, but perhaps taking over Kakashi's team was much harder than he expected.

Naruto didn't look anyone in the eye when Tenzo agreed to give him time off from training. They were all rather surprised, but who were they to question the team leader? It could be the truth that Naruto would need extra time to learn how to impersonate Sasori.

Tenzo coughed slightly in his hand, "Well lets get out of here, Naruto is going to bed. Everyone you are all going to wake up at 6am alright? No exceptions. We will then proceed until we are eight miles from the bridge, and I will give everyone a quick teamwork training session... except Naruto, who will be busy." Tenzo frowned at that thought. "Then later during the day, the spy will meet at the bridge, at which point we will go through with the plan we have already gone over."

With that being said, Naruto's team left the room. However Sakura took a long look at Naruto's bag before he left, which unnerved Naruto. Once everyone was out of the room Naruto took the time to seal the book as quickly as possible, before she could come back in and ask about it.

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Naruto was nervous, but that was to be expected. He was about to meet some unknown spy, and he only had tidbits of information on from Sasori's journals. He was currently sitting on the roof of a large wooden house Tenzo produced eight miles away from the bridge. It wasn't overly large, it was more like a rather big shack, or small house.

Naruto was currently looking carefully at a book in his lap as he had a brush in his left hand, and his right arm was exposed. He was currently sealing the Kazekage puppet in his wrist with a specific seal in Sasori's journal. It wasn't overly complex, and he had seen enough seals through Sasori's journals to grasp a basic concept on what this one was supposed to do. It worked like a summoning seal. Some summoners tattoo their wrists with a seal, and then by wiping blood over it they remove the need for the required seals needed to perform a summoning jutsu.

Sasori's was a bit different. As a puppet, he didn't have blood. So he changed the seal to work by chakra being channeled to his wrist. Or at least Naruto thought that was how it worked. He assumed another possibility was that since blood was required for summoning Gamabunta, perhaps that was just a component given on top of this standard seal. Since he wasn't summoning any sort of ritual, it was just a puppet. An advanced puppet, but still a puppet, perhaps this was a basic summoning seal. Like on the scrolls Tenten had used in the chunin exams.

He didn't know. He just knew it's use. So he worked away with sealing the puppet in his arm, and toyed with it a bit. Sealing and unsealing it. That was when he realized how much more complex the seal. When unsealed, the puppet that popped out of the seal would release with several chakra strings already attached to it. Then by just extending your chakra, or flaring it a minor amount, the strings you fly to your finger tips as if pulled by magnets. Now that was definitely useful. Of course someone as skilled as Sasori likely removed the necessity of such a seal after awhile with how skilled the man became in puppeteering. He just happened to still have it documented. Naruto intended to take full advantage of that.

If Naruto was honest with himself, he was scared as the day went by. He was confident in his ability, and in his poison. He knew he was just supposed to be meeting a spy, but what if he was deceived? What if the spy betrayed him? Sure Sasori didn't seem to be the type of person to let such a thing happen... but there was always that chance right? Or what if Orochimaru followed him right to the bridge? While the man may not have been a challenge for Sasori, he still had no idea how skilled he was as a puppeteer when measured against an incredibly skilled opponent. Hell, Orochimaru killed the old man. Anyone with half a brain wouldn't take such a man lightly. In the shinobi world, Sasori said everyone should be perceived as a lethal threat, no matter how skilled. Because even a child can pick up a kunai he found laying around and throw it at someone. The Kunai is the lethal part, even if the kunai was carelessly thrown by poor hands.

Of course Sasori then went into various factors around that concept such as a Kunai's potential, and then the wielder increasing and enhancing the said potential. However Naruto didn't need to get into that right now.

What he did know was Orochimaru was strong, and he wanted any possible jump he could get on the snake shinobi. So, that was why once he was able to successfully seal the Kazekage in his arm he made his way to the bridge early.

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Naruto had scouted the bridge out beforehand, making sure the spy wasn't already there, and just in hiding. That would have been bad. He went there with the intent that he would be encountering a spy and Orochimaru at the same time. As Sasori always said, expect the worst out of a situation and prepare for it before hand. Of course Naruto wasn't going to prepare for earthquakes and natural disasters, that was too much, and Sasori didn't mean prepare like that. He just meant that if something plausible, was possible of happening, prepare for it. A spy being followed by the person he was spying on is definitely in the realm of possibility.

When he got there, he realized that the bridge itself wasn't that bad of a place to fight. The bridge was long, and left virtually no place to run, you could only be in the straight pathway of the bridge, or in the air above it. It was actually fairly idea if he just opened Hiruko's mouth and sprayed Senbon down the bridge.

There were also some major advantages just from the bridge itself. It had metal railing. Having a puppet that controlled magnetic fields, being able to bend metal railing was extremely useful. The problem was, if he did that his team would see... which would be hard to explain. He really needed to find a way to get the jump on Orochimaru without having the Kazekage being visible, or using any puppets besides Hiruko.

He considered making Hiruko just larger than normal, and hiding the Kazekage in there with him. The problem with that was what if the spy knew what Hiruko looked like? Hell he had to of known seeing as no spy had ever seen Sasori's true face. So that was out of the question.

He paused as he an idea popped into his head. His team had never seen Sasori actually fight? What if he went in Hiruko, while controlling the Kazekage? Yes, it was extremely risky. Naruto could very well be putting all of his training with his most useful puppet on the line having the trump card out right at the start of the encounter. However what he could do was just cover the Kazekage completely in rags, and has the Iron Sand already out under the bridge. He could play off having it out by just being prepared or lying and saying one of his spies in a random village betrayed him, so he is using the puppet as a safety precaution.

With the Iron sand already out, it was the perfect trap. If Orochimaru were to appear, or a ninja Orochimaru sent, he could protrude a spike from the bottom of the bridge. If the shinobi wasn't nicked at all by the iron sand, they he would either be closer or farther away down the bridge. Although... he could also launch a large array of senbon down the bridge, forcing the enemy into the air. Now a lot of shinobi hate being in the air for many reasons, however most importantly, it made the shinobi prone to practically every attack thought possible. For example, Good luck dodging a fire dragon when you are in the middle of the air. You wont get a water source in the middle of the air to defend yourself, wind jutsu would just add to the fire, like water, good luck getting any earth jutsu off. Perhaps lightning jutsu could provide some type of defense, but regardless it was a useful tactic.

It was also probably something that Gaara must have picked up on as well. Maneuverability in mid air is minimal at best, and he can just control enemies if they are in mid air with his sand manipulation. Lucky for Naruto, he had a deadlier equivalent to sand manipulation.

So in reality, he could just call his battle strategy 'Operation get enemy into the air.'

The way Naruto saw it was he was putting himself directly in the line of fire, and he would be damned if he was becoming another sacrifice for the second time in his life. No this time, he was willing, and he would be prepared to make it out of the encounter alive. That meant preparing for the unexpected. Hell this really could just be as simple as "Hi , I am going to bag and tag you now, and send you to Konoha Interrogation Department, and then get my paycheck."

_Imagine his surprise when after he went through all of the set up, and waited on the bridge while his teammates were in the shadows only for Yakushi Kabuto to show up as the spy._

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First real AN in my opinion. So I have been taking a break from my story Soul of the Sword. I know where I want to go, its just that my girlfriend came back from New York and have been busy. On top of that, I really hate writing the chunin exams, because they are rather hard to make original. I seriously find no point and just rewriting something that someone can just read in canon manga online. So at least part of it has to be original.

Anyways the third chapter has been posted after quite some time.

Naruto's current strength, and quick growth: Before anyone starts to yell, "You made Naruto overpowered!" (You will probably be yelling it far more next chapter actually.) No, I didn't. Naruto learned a lot very quickly. However on the same grounds, with the ability to learn like that and pretty much a vault of information given to you? Are you really not going to use everything you have access to in order to become the very best you can possibly be? Many of you may still say "Oh, but you still overpowered him." or "Oh but thats cheating." no, and no. Sasori was strong, but Naruto isn't as skilled as Sasori at the moment. There is no such thing as "Cheating" when your job can put you on the edge of life and death every single day, you do whatever you can to survive.

Orochimaru:It got a bit tough already knowing Orochimaru appears at the bridge, yet the characters in the story aren't supposed to know. That being said, I always felt that Sasori was a "Prepare for the worst" type of guy, and would have mentioned doing so time and time again in his journals.

Ino: Was originally intended to be put in for tension and development. However I changed the plot to the point where Ino will not have as big of a roll as anticipated, but will still have a role none the less. That is why she is currently tagging along.

I got this comment earlier from a friend(and my beta, who wasn't able to beta this chapter due to getting sick.) that Orochimaru is immune to poisons. I went over this in my head and decided against it, just because he produces a lot of venom, from a snake and like a snake does not mean he is immune to poisons. While this goes against an interesting interpretation of Orochimaru in Scorpion's Disciple, that is not the route I intend to go with this story. My friend also mentioned that Orochimaru's blade has the deadliest poison in the world, on it, Orochimaru would have likely tried to make himself immune to the said poison. That is likely true, however just being immune to one poison does not make you immune to all.(I wanted to shut this down before it started)

I hope I didn't make Tenzo feel like a pushover. I gave valid reasons as to why Naruto would be better suited as Sasori, aside from his own personal new and improved skillset.

anyways I will wrap up the AN here, feel free to ask any questions about this story. I will answer every question as long as it wasn't answered here.

Read and Review.

**What does everyone think about Kabuto, that is my question to everyone who reviews. Feel free to answer it, I would like to see everyone's opinion of him.**

edit: Fixed a couple errors in the chapter. Still yet to be Beta'd. No, I'm not trying to fool anyone, My "Replace chapter" keeps coming up as an error. Idk why, so I am completely removing it and reposting it.


	4. The Betrayer Becomes The Betrayed

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Some of you may want to jump the gun or be surprised by what happens this chapter. However I ask you all to read my reasoning at the bottom(after you read the chapter.) to see the reasons behind my actions.

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"You have got to be kidding me." at least that was what Naruto wanted to say when he saw Kabuto. His first instinct wasn't to even trust the man, hell he had betrayed Konoha. However if Sasori had trusted the man... he had to give him the benefit of the doubt. Now he didn't want to live his life by every detail in Sasori's books, the fact of the matter was, who else could he really trust? His friends? His best friend betrayed him, and the other had been physically and mentally abusing him since he was six. Those were his best friends, hell one was a romantic interest. He sure knew how to pick good friends.

What about his teachers? Well they were both complete perverts, one completely favored his best friend, and taught him nothing. The other tried to teach him something that he himself didn't understand. Neither were your star teachers. Not to mention the later rarely taught him anything, he enjoyed spending his time "Gathering information" which was usually code name for peeping at the hot springs.

Now that wasn't to say Sasori would have been a spectacular teacher if he had been alive. He likely would have lied a lot. However, the good part of the situation was that, Sasori was dead, so he had to get his knowledge in paper format. He never realized it until recently but, books are nice, they can't lie to you. They can only be uninformed.

That was the part that worried him, he didn't trust Kabuto. What is Sasori's information, his books were uninformed. If the information had yet to be updated yet, he could have walked directly into a trap.

There were some sudden complications that came up last minute. For example, having his "replacement sensei" forge him his very own Hiruko costume. Which, much to his displeasure didn't have any of the gadgets that Sasori's Hiruko had. Of course this was easy to overcome. He only needed the wood user to know that he had to make Naruto the wooden Hiruko. Once it was made, he could just easily scrap the mediocre knock off and replace it with Sasori's personal Hiruko. Than all he would have to do is say that he stocked the puppet with the weapons he remembered from his battle with Sasori.

The spy was testing him, it was obvious, at least to him. He had spent the last equivalent of three years reading the man's thoughts. He however couldn't say too much, he was wired with a one was microphone, so everyone could hear what he was saying while they were in hiding. They would step in if they felt that Naruto's cover was in jeopardy. Of course, Naruto could only hope that they would step in too soon, because he could probably talk for days with this spy, or get all the information needed in minutes. They just didn't know that.

As the conversation went on, Naruto would let Kabuto do most of the talking. Sasori had always worked for his own intentions, and never talked unless it was necessary. So instead of asking things such as "Where is Uchiha Sasuke." why would Sasori ask a question he knew the answer to? Something that stupid could be answered with "He's training." or "He's with Orochimaru." no that was silly. So naturally he decided to ask, "Which hole are you hiding in now?"

It was a simple question really, where were they located. Sasori had personally worked with Orochimaru, and when he left, well it was obvious that his leaving didn't put them on the best of terms. Especially since the snake had ruined a few of Sasori's puppets in the process. Since the red headed man practically considered his puppets a form of art, having your art smashed to bits by someone you consider a partner is probably not the best way to leave a situation.

Kabuto hid his face under his cloak, "We are currently hidden on a small island in a lake to the north. We will be moving in three days."

Naruto by now was completely on edge, almost jumpy. This conversation was slowly dwindling down, and the bush had just rattled due to a rabbit. His adrenaline was already pumping, but then again whose wouldn't be? He was a Genin staring a powerful missing nin in the face, trying to weed information out of him, all the while preparing to spring a trap on the spy's even more powerful "master."

The good thing about the puppet he was hiding in was the hat on his head shadowed his eyes. If they weren't the spy would see him continually looking over the bush that had a rabbit in it. To him that was out of character for Sasori, and it was something he wished that he could avoid doing. He knew Sasori wouldn't be jumpy at the sight of a rabbit, he would likely just pay a mindful eye to the area. Although to be fair, that is likely gained from active battle. Being completely aware of your surroundings even if you don't appear aware.

However in the next few seconds hell broke loose. Kabuto was in the process of asking for some stupid item. However that didn't bother him in the least, he actually completely stopped paying attention to Kabuto. He caught the sight of the signature pasty white skin out by the bushes for a split second. His first instinct was to draw a kunai, which was of course until he remembered the traps he currently had laid out.

The rogue Sannin was one for being theatrical, probably why him and Sasori got along so well. It could be considered an art form. Who else would honestly shunshin into a conversation, with snakes out saying "Your conversation seems quite amusing, you wouldn't mind if I joined in would you?"

Naruto however wasn't going to be over surprised by theatrics. If he was, then the man had a leg up on him. So the second Kabuto jumped to Naruto's side, he batted him backwards with his tail shouting, "Cover me!" It came out in a gruffer, raspier voice than normal. It didn't really sound like Sasori at all, from the brief widening of Orochimaru's eyes for a moment, Naruto could only assume the man had noticed. He could only hope Kabuto had not, the man had supposedly not seen him in five years, so perhaps it would be fair to say he hadn't noticed. He doubted that he and Sasori were nearly as close as Orochimaru and Sasori.

The trap hadn't caught Orochimaru off guard in the slightest it would seem. Naruto had flicked his wrist with the intent to spring a custom-exploding note. When it exploded it would launch little poison pellets out like shrapnel. The Sannin however obviously had prepared for a trap. The trap wasn't exactly intended to be the killing blow for Orochimaru, he had expected the man to dodge the trap... just not completely shrug is off as he fluidly moved around it as if the trap has never been there.

The moment he landed back on the bridge, the bandana of Sasori's Hiruko puppet fell off, only to launch a large array of senbon down the bridge. Naruto began to see it more and more as the snake like man had effortlessly dodge trap after trap, surprise after surprise. What was even more frustrating was that the Sannin didn't even appear to be focusing, he kept staring at Kabuto as if he was in shock at his betrayal? Like honestly, he had trained the shinobi to betray Konoha, even he betrayed Konoha. Why was he so surprised that he, the betrayer, had become the betrayed?

Konoha shinobi had jumped onto the bridge by now, adding even more chaos to the entire situation. Thank god they weren't asking Naruto how he was springing the traps. It wasn't like the chakra strings were completely invisible. The only problem with this in his eyes were that... he was running out of traps. If he unsealed the Kazekage now, shit would hit the fan when it came to the mission report. God knows the political backlash, and he himself would become even more despised, if he wasn't already going to be executed.

So he did the best thing that he could think of, "Kabuto, run!" he yelled. The betrayer stared for a moment between "Sasori's" wooden back, surrounded by Konoha ninjas. Or Orochimaru, currently using his snakes as a whip to get himself out of harms way, which happened to be another shrapnel trap courtesy of Naruto. Orochimaru's eyes were narrowed at Kabuto's the second he saw the silver haired shinobi run.

Naruto could feel the glares from his female teammates on his back. However it was only moments before the Konoha shinobi darted off. Their mission was to capture the spy, that was all. Tenzo had yelled for Naruto to follow, before he began weaving through trees, his team following behind him. The only one that opted not to follow was the emotionless boy, who had taken to standing on a rock off behind Naruto near the edge of the cliff.

Orochimaru landed and his grin grew large as he gazed at Naruto. "So it would appear you have made progress Naruto-kun. I was expecting you to be far weaker than this. However, it is obvious that Sasori must have had an influence on your growth."

Naruto narrowed his eyes as he hopped out of Hiruko, sealing the large puppet quickly before drawing the Kazekage with a bit of chakra channeled to the tattoo on his arm. Naruto was no longer wearing his shinobi outfit, he was dressed in a manner similar to that of a civilian. An over sized black shirt, and his regular orange pants. His necklace won from Tsunade dangling right on his chest.

Naruto was nearly out of traps, and tried his best to keep his expression blank so it wouldn't be expressed to the Snake Sannin, it was just hard since Naruto felt as if he was staring death in the face. "It is a shame..." Orochimaru began as he began taking slow steps toward Naruto, "that your village must not of properly trained you, and that you had to learn from a missing ninja."

Naruto resisted the urge to scowl, that was probably one of the biggest annoyances in his Shinobi career. Not even Sasuke's departure affected him that much, what frustrated him was that Sasuke was only able to depart due to the extra help he had received. Naruto covered it up with a fake smile that he had perfected throughout his life, "Well, its not that Konoha doesn't like me, or doesn't want to train me. It is just that missing ninja love me, that is why the Akatsuki is after me far more than you," he said keeping a large smile on his face the whole way through.

It got the desired rise out of Orochimaru. It wasn't a threat by any means, however the underlying message to his statement was that the Akatsuki didn't see the man as a threat. While it was a good thing, it was a stab at ones ego at the same time. Orochimaru smiled deviously at Naruto's statement, and lifted his hand above his mouth, only for a long elegant blade to come out. Naruto now knew a new way to defeat the Sannin.

Naruto didn't want the Sannin to get the leg up on him by any means. He always had the upper hand on Sasori due to the brute force of his fighting, against Sasori's more stationary, and plotting of the enemy's moves. Orochimaru however was far more skilled than Naruto was. So, allowing Orochimaru to gain any leverage, or the upper hand at all during battle would surely lead to his demise. So with the movements of an expert, Naruto had the Kazekage attacking the Snake Sannin with Iron Sand.

Naruto's new battle plan was to be able to utilize his final traps to back the Sannin into a "Corner." which would probably be a pile up of trees or some wreckage by the time the battle was coming to an end. The true problem was, he had no idea what Orochimaru may use to fight. He had drawn the blade, and so far was able to bat away a few stray Iron Sand pellets that were flying his way, however other than that, the Sannin appeared to be rather relaxed.

It was almost as if the snake wielder was testing him... fine. However that was fine, in the past he knew that fact would have made him angry. However now, it only makes him happy, it means that Sannin wasn't taking him seriously. Underestimating the enemy can lead to death. Luckily for him, Orochimaru was the one doing the underestimating, where as he expected Orochimaru to be able to pull the unexpected.

The painter behind him who was just standing there on the cliff doing nothing was unnerving. It was almost if the boy was just waiting for the moment to stab him in the back. If he weren't a Konoha shinobi, he would probably try to take care of him right now, while Orochimaru was being pushed back.

Naruto soon pushed the black haired boy from his mind. The Sannin, in his cockiness, just triggered a countdown. The countdown was for the number of seconds the Iron Sand would need to push the shinobi back before the final three remaining traps were going to be sprung.

3...

2...

1...

Three seals burst open, firing large arrays of senbon at where the Sannin had just landed. He however had obviously expected this seeing as how he jumped straight up avoiding the senbon that flew out of three different seals. However Naruto knew he wasn't prepared for the follow up. Iron sand formed into tiny little bullets that fired off, making a sheet of evenly space metal pellets flying at Orochimaru's form. Much to Naruto's displeasure, the Sannin appeared to get off a lucky substitution jutsu before the bullets could connect.

However that was all fun and well, because where he stood was now surrounded by poisonous senbon. The Sannin had blocked many of them with his blade, and it's bending movements. However as Naruto expected when he first imagined Sasori's fighting style. A shinobi can block three senbon, some can block 10, and maybe the best of the best can block twenty. However blocking eighty? A hundred senbon? Not likely.

That Sannin had opted to protect his upper body, as various senbon stuck into his feet and ankles. Naruto grinned as he slowly proceeded over to the pale skinned shinobi. To think he was able to beat someone like Orochimaru? The moment the shinobi was hit, the match was over.

Or at least that was what he thought. The moment he got close to the Sannin, he realized the bastard was playing possum. The snake wielder had sprung upward, and his tongue had shot out, wrapping around Naruto's neck. Naruto was just lucky to have seen that coming at the last moment, and had the handle of the kunai wedged in before he could be strangled to death. Naruto now understood the various bonuses of becoming a human puppet, such as a lack of vitals.

Naruto grit his teeth as he had the Kazekage stay back. He was trying his best to wield the Kazekage, however it was hard to focus when being strangled. He put that down in his mental notebook, "Practice keeping calm in the face of death." Yep... a few visits to the fox and he should be good to go.

That was when it hit him, all he would have to do is stall for a moment, "Rather frog like thing to do with your tongue here..." Naruto said with a grin through gritted teeth.

Orochimaru only smirked at Naruto, "Oh, well make sure not to tell anyone Naruto-kun, I would hate for your sensei to find out. That is of course, if he taught you anything, and really was your sensei. I remember the last time we met, you were laying there on the ground..." The Sannin took that moment to yank Naruto to the ground roughly, back on the ground. "Motionless, on the brink of death. However that was only due to my subordinate."

Naruto grinned, "Former subordinate." he coughed out as he closed his eyes and began to focus.

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed at the mention of Kabuto, and him running off. Was this betrayal? Or part of an act... he knew for certain that it wasn't part of the plan. Orochimaru however took too much time getting lost in his thoughts, that Naruto actually caught him off guard.

"I am afraid that my sensei taught me one thing..." Naruto drawled catching Orochimaru's attention. "Kyuubi's chakra is a corrosive poison." Orochimaru's eyes widened at that, and he wanted to jump away. However it proved impossible, the tongue was trying it's best to unwind itself, but it wasn't nearly fast enough. Red chakra flared across Naruto's body, and came to life like flames. The chakra went up and around Orochimaru's tongue, just as he was getting away.

The Snake Sannin was panting heavily from his spot several feet from Naruto. "It would appear that your not fairing too well with two different poisons in your system..." Naruto said calmly. The Sannin's tongue was numb, hanging out of his mouth, paralyzed. You could see the pale man struggling to bring his tongue back into his mouth, though he was doing his best to hide it. "The question is, is that paralysis due to the poison, or Kyuubi's chakra."

Naruto regained his bearings and he stood up calmly, bringing the Kazekage puppet closer to him, he should finish the battle now.

Orochimaru however didn't feel on the same page, he tried his best to withdraw his blade, you could see his neck physically widening to allow the sword passage through. Naruto just didn't have time for any more crap, god knows what the black haired kid was doing.

As the long sword was coming out of Orochimaru's mouth, Naruto flicked a finger. However this wasn't just any finger flick, this was a finger flick that happened to control the Kazekage's ability to manipulate magnetic fields. The sword, that Orochimaru was trying his best to get out of his mouth, was now pierced through his throat. The snake wielder would be dead in no more than a minute. However... the man had already fooled him once, there was no reason to allow the Sannin to get the leg up on him once again.

Naruto with another finger flick, that got held downward, dragged the blade directly down the rogue Sannin's body. Cutting through his heart, the shocked expression written on the snake ninja's face was proof enough, the man was dead.

Naruto frowned as he looked at the shinobi's unmoving form. It was almost anti-climactic. This shinobi before him, nearly ruined his early shinobi career. Had him on the edge of life and death several times, laid motionless below him. There wasn't any large-scale battle, there wasn't any major destructive jutsu that clashed as what happened with him and Sasuke. No, it was just him utilizing a mechanic of one of his tools to capitalize on a shinobi's mistake. This was also an odd turn of events for himself. This was honestly the first human he had killed. Sasori was all wood. To think that him, a Genin, had killed two people in his career, both of them being S-class missing ninja. 'First in history?' he thought to himself with a lazy grin.

He wasn't particularly fond of the idea of touch the body of a man that seemingly cheated death. The poison should have stopped him dead in his tracks. So, naturally he used shadow clones to seal the body into a scroll. He had no idea what he wanted to do with the body. Make it a puppet? Cash it in for a lot of money? Who knows? All he knew was that is was a complete loss to gather the body.

It didn't take long, once the process of sealing the pale skinned shinobi into a scroll had gone through, he walked back to the bridge. It unnerved him greatly that the black haired shinobi was no longer around. He had been watching the entire fight from the sidelines, why would he leave now? Because the fight was over? The boy didn't even bother to say, "Hey are you okay?"

Naruto sighed, well, his best current bet was to carry onto the base that Kabuto had mentioned. That was no doubt where Kabuto must have been headed, he took off in that direction after all. Naruto sealed the Kazekage back into his wrist with some channeled chakra, he just couldn't help but feel that it may have not been the best move for Orochimaru to have been out of the picture so soon. He stuck to telling himself, 'It was a life and death situation... right?'

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Naruto sighed, however he found himself wondering if it was a sigh of annoyance or relief. He hadn't seen his team on the way to the hideout Kabuto had mentioned moments before running off. This had its pros and cons. The pros were he could start aimlessly running through the complex in search of the Hokage bodies, without his team to question him. The cons of course were, who knew what sort of things were in this complex, not to mention he didn't know the way around at all. Just as easily as he could find the Hokage bodies, he could find Sasuke or his team. The two later both had their own set of problems. Not to mention he couldn't justly run around the complex with the Kazekage out. He could take a turn, and bump into his team. God knows the type of questions that could be asked under those circumstances. Hell, he couldn't run around with any puppets out. So in truth, his main choice of combat was suddenly taken from him. This was definitely not ideal, however it could be worse...

He had taken to going through the underground maze in chunks. He would let his clones check room after room, and dispel on a moments notice of danger, the Kage corpses, his team, or anything else he himself would deem interesting. So while the clones rushed off in all directions, he could go through the dark complex at a stroll.

Naruto sighed as he thought over the death of Orochimaru. It almost felt unreal that the Sannin had died like that. Sure he didn't really care for the pale faced shinobi, however he did know that he was a member of the Akatsuki, and was able to beat the Third Hokage. Someone such as that, you would expect them to be able to cripple a mere Genin. Perhaps it was because he was weakened, from a bad body. Yet at the same time that couldn't of been it... the man was able to fight off the effects of Naruto's poison until Naruto gave the man a personal dosage of which put the snake wielder out of commission.

It was frustrating thinking about the situation, would his team seriously believe him if he said he killed Orochimaru? The situation was ironic... they were chasing a spy around god knows where in order to capture him to find the location of their hidden base, and lead to the assassination of Orochimaru. Yet here was Naruto walking around their hidden base, with Orochimaru's corpse in his possession. It pretty much deemed their actions pointless.

Naruto suddenly stopped and flinched. It would appear that Orochimaru liked giving snakes their own personal living quarters. A clone of his opened a door, and in an instant a snake had sprung at it. The last thing the clone had seen was a snake launching towards him, mouth headed for its throat.

He knew he was risking being caught using fifty clones running through the entire underground area. It didn't appear Orochimaru kept guards, but it was still nerve wracking. Just because it didn't appear that he kept guards, did not mean he didn't keep guards for a fact, it just meant that the said guards had been yet to be found.

Naruto told himself not to be stupid, and leave opening the rooms to the clones, but he couldn't help himself. He heard a groaning on the other side of a door he passed by. He reasoned that curiosity killed the cat, but since he wasn't a cat it wasn't dangerous for him. Horrible reason, yes. However it got him to open the door, just when he had wished he hadn't. It was proof that despite his new personality, his new attitude as a shinobi, his old self was in there. The reason was what he felt when he saw the red hair sprawled over the head of a medical bed. He felt pity, for his enemy. He remembered the girl, how could he not? She was the girl that Shikamaru fought, and nearly lost to from what Shikamaru said. That was of course until Temari came and saved the day for him.

Naruto frowned, he wanted to become an ideal shinobi. By Sasori's statement that meant crushing any emotional attachments, yet here he was feeling pity for the enemy no less. Definitely not his best moment in "project redeem shinobi career." Tayuya of the Sound Four. While Shikamaru and Temari both said that they had defeated the girl, they never exactly said how. The only detail they really did mention was that Temari essentially cut down a chunk of forest. However, they said "cut down" was being polite. Shikamaru however said that the blonde wind mistress demolished the place, which was rather amusing to him personally. He didn't know much about Temari, but he knew how much she had spared Tenten if the girl could demolish a forest.

There were various ways that the red head could escape. The problem was, of all places to go, even after her she was essentially thought dead by everyone, why would she come back here?

Naruto walked into the room quietly and cautiously. The girl appeared to not have aged as best as she could. However with all of the tubes sticking out of her, could he really blame the girl? God knows what Orochimaru had done to her when she returned to him, or better yet, what Kabuto likely had done to her. He was the medical ninja after all.

Naruto ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh. He calmly moved over the semi-conscious girl who lay on the table. If he could really call her a girl, she was probably at least a couple years older than him, however laying on this table, in this poor of shape, the girl appeared to be five or six years older than him. That was being modest, the girl was unhealthy, and malnourished. She looked at Naruto with squinting eyes. She was stripped of her clothing, and had various markings drawn her body in pen and ink. The girl must have been freezing.

Naruto put a hand on her arm for a moment, only to be surprised by the girl didn't seem to be cold in the slightest. His first thought was that she had a fever, but she didn't feel overly hot, she felt normal. Of course, he wasn't always the best gauge for normal, he hadn't had much human contact in his life period. Hell the only physical contact he received out of combat was... abuse from his teammate really. Physical contact really stopped by all means when he became a ninja besides a pat on the back.

Naruto looked at the charts and various papers lying scattered on the carts around where the girl was laying. Paying mind to ignore the scalpels, and other medical tools, he found a diagram of the girls supposed body. At least he guessed it was her body since it had 'Tayuya' on the paper. There were various points marked on her body, abs, arms, forearms, really many of the key muscles in the body. Each one had a little note by the bullet point, _'Inj:1, Inj:2, Inj:3, and so on.' _

Naruto frowned, he had the paper in one hand, and looked over the girls body for a moment. That was of course until he poked her where there was a single needle mark, which caused her to groan in pain. Naruto knew that he was by no means a medical expert, _'yet...'_ he added dryly as an after thought. He moves away from the injection, and poked her chest. Naruto assumed it would gain another groan of pain, but this time it just appeared the girl tried to throw a string of curses at him. Well, it appeared that she kept the same personality she had three years ago at least.

Naruto walked over to her face, and gently began slapping her cheek, "I will get you out of this if you tell me where Orochimaru keeps the Hokage bodies!"

The girl looked torn, she had hope in her eyes, but at the same time fear. Naruto fought the urge to roll his eyes. If she was fearing Orochimaru, the only thing he could really do to her now was give her a paper cut from the scroll he was currently located in. Even then, Naruto would have to greatly assist Orochimaru in making such an action, seeing as the man was dead, and sealed in a scroll. Naruto flicked the girl gently, "Do you really want to stay here as a test subject? If not tell me where the hell he keeps the bodies!"

There was a brief pause before she said anything. Her voice was raspy, the voice of a girl who hadn't talked in a long time. Her lips were rather chapped, and had the faintest scarring. It was obvious that whatever process she had gone through was a painful one. "Left down to the end of this hallway, turn right, it's the first door on the right."

Just as she said that, Naruto got the information transferred to him by a clone dispersing. He stared at the girl before him in interest, it was surprising she was able to remember something like that. Who knows how long she had been toyed and tinkered with by Orochimaru?

Naruto at that moment left the room, ignoring the raspy "Wait!" called after him. He had more important things to do on his list at the moment, such as converting two of the world's greatest shinobi into puppets as quickly as possible. Luckily, he had as many hands as he could possibly need.

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It was actually a far easier task than he had anticipated. Of course going through Sasori's personal notes on the subject time and time again before he actually went on to doing it were probably the reason for this. Proper preparation lead to his success. Now he safely had one arm with Suna's Third Kazekage, while on his other arm, sealed up were two of Konoha's Hokage's. In his opinion, they were the two best possible Hokage's to make into puppets.

Yep... he had definitely hit the jackpot. If he wanted to, he could honestly retire from being a ninja now with these two tools at his side. He could go out and buy a giant rocky wasteland, and turn it into a dense woodland with a man made lake. Have his personal farm land, and irrigate it, or just water it. Yep... he could in theory become rich with the two puppets alone. He just first needed to practice with them.

Naruto sighed as he walked out of the room. He really wanted to just sit back and relax, he now knew it was safe to say that there were no guards in this entire underground maze, there were just a lot of snakes. Although his team didn't seem to catch onto him wanting to relax. The wood wielder, and his two academy classmates came down the hallway, prisoner held in an assortment of ropes and wood.

Sakura got an expression of shock on her face at the sight of Naruto. Naruto in turn did his best to look beat and tired. He was expecting her to start asking question after question, whether it be about traps, why he didn't follow them, how he survived. So yes, he was surprised when he suddenly was enveloped in a strong hug by his crush... or at least his former crush. He had to be honest, Sasori's books had really put his emotions on hold. Perhaps that was a bad thing, especially when it came to his friends. Of course, his thoughts stopped when he felt wet tears on his neck. Naruto was so confused, what the hell was he supposed to do?

Sakura mumbled into his neck, "Your alive? I thought that Orochimaru got you, I looked behind me after we took off and and..."

Naruto opened and closed his mouth. He hadn't gotten many hugs in his life, not to mention one where a girl was sobbing into his neck. He had never gotten one of those. What was he supposed to say in this situation? He patted her gently on the back, and rubbed it lightly before whispering, "Hey don't worry, I'm fine."

Ino was smirking at the scene playing out before her, and her smirk could only widen as she heard, "I thought I lost you, like I lost Sasuke-kun."

Naruto's expression softened at that. Yeah, he would have to admit it, if he ever lost Sakura after losing Sasuke, he would be hurt. He now understood where she was coming from with all of this, emotions be damned. Naruto sighed, "Hey... I'm not going anywhere."

The wood wielder however wasn't so soft with the questioning. Once Sakura's and Naruto's embrace ended, he didn't waste a second in asking, "How did you escape for Orochimaru?"

The moment the man said that recognition suddenly flashed on Kabuto's face before him. It was a bit like the "Oh shit" look you get when you realize that you are soon to be royally screwed. It was okay though, Orochimaru was dead, but he would be damned if he had to say that soon.

Luckily for once Naruto had to admit, he was glad Sasuke had received additional training compared to him. A large explosion had rocked the complex not far from they were, not far at all really. Seeing as how there was suddenly a light at the end of the tunnel, when it used to be a dark barely lit blackness.

Naruto was quick to yell, "That's probably Sasuke!" it wasn't so much that he was excited. It was more that he was trying to get the others pumped up. It certainly worked with Sakura, seeing as how she was off within a second, shortly followed by Ino.

Tenzo looked torn between following orders, and looking after his squad. Naruto of course quickly chose to say, "Go, I'll watch him, I'm beat anyways." Naruto silently cursed himself, bad choice of words for someone wanting to watch a prisoner. Tenzo didn't look like he was willing to give Kabuto over until Naruto followed up, "Honestly, do you really thing he is going anywhere? Ropes, and wood?" Okay that was a bit more convincing. It had obviously worked since Tenzo momentarily frowned, and said a quick "Be careful." before taking off after the girls and pushing Kabuto over to Naruto's grasp.

Naruto waited for the wood user to go into the light before Naruto back peddled a bit into the hall that he had found Tayuya in, all the while dragging Kabuto along. That was when Naruto sighed and calmly said, "Alright... so let me get this straight, you were Sasori's spy this entire time?" Naruto said, almost as if the entire situation was unbelievable.

Kabuto had to choose his words carefully, or of course he could just deflect. He was rather good when it came to conversing with people. "So you were in the Hiruko puppet?"

Naruto grinned momentarily at that, before covering it back up with his best expressionless stare before saying, "I had to hop out in order to kill Orochimaru."

Kabuto had to hold in his sheer disbelief. Killing Orochimaru? Highly doubtful, the man's skill was far beyond what he had seen in most shinobi. He could take on several members of the Akatsuki, and a few of them were clear wins in his favor. To think that Naruto, this Genin, who had nearly fallen victim to his well-placed medical jutsu, has bested a Sannin, the entire idea was a joke. Sure he would say it, and it was the truth when he said that if Naruto had more control, he could be dangerous. However, no matter how elusive Jiraiya was with Naruto, everyone who was actively searching for the boy at least found out his rate of progress. He had barely progressed at all, it was a pathetic and unbelievable lie on Naruto's part.

That of course was until he analyzed the situation further...

The same Naruto knew what Hiruko looked like, knew how Sasori acted, appeared to have the actual Hiruko puppet, even sprung traps in the same manner of Sasori. He kept calm in the face of danger, and was able to convince Kabuto to once again betray his master. It looked like the best choice at the time for the current situation. There weren't really many explanations to Naruto knowing so much. Like Sasori would actually let the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki walk away, when his organization's goal was to catch all of the Jinchuuriki? However then by having faith in Sasori's skills, yet Naruto still standing here, it could only lead to one thing. Naruto had beaten Sasori, and had known him best to fill the role as bait.

This of course led to more questions and frustrating revelations. For example, if Naruto beat Sasori, then the question came up as to how. He supposedly hadn't progressed that much during his training with Jiraiya. Sasori was known for being able to take down the majority of the Akatsuki members due to his style of combat. Yet Naruto had suddenly been able to take him down. It didn't add up. Now here Naruto was saying that he defeated Orochimaru?

It was frustrating, because he didn't know what to believe. On one hand, here was a Genin that by all means should not be able to defeat any Jounin level shinobi. However on the other hand, here was a shinobi that had supposedly had no trouble defeating two S-class missing ninja. Now all he had to do was decided which was the more believable one. Well, it didn't take long, because believability doesn't get you through life, survivability does that. Now he may not believe Naruto had taken on two S-class missing ninja, killed them and lived to tell about it. However on the off chance he had done such a thing, it was best to stay on his good side, since it seemed that was where he already was.

"Anyways, that being said I don't like you and I don't trust you in the least." Naruto said calmly as he stared the silver haired male in the face.

'So it seemed...' thought Kabuto dryly.

"I will respect what Sasori has said about you, Y.K., in his journals. That means you being one of Sasori's most trusted spies..." Naruto paused for a moment as he gauged Kabuto's reaction to all of this. "I expect you to come through for me, as you would for him." Naruto finished calmly with a frown on his face.

Kabuto stood there for a long time, thinking over his options. Both of his masters were effectively dead, he truly had no place to go, and no one to work for, and with the death of Orochimaru many of his purposes and contacts suddenly just dried up.

Kabuto looked at the teen, the same age as the boy that came to him and Orochimaru three years ago. It was widely speculated between himself and Orochimaru-sama that Sasuke and Naruto were going to repeat history. They had already done so as the Uchiha and the Senju, in all but blood at the Valley of the End. Sasuke had become strong, possibly stronger that Orochimaru. However... Sasuke had been given drugs, he could blatantly copy any technique shown to him, he had training from an excellent shinobi who knew a vault of knowledge about shinobi. He had quite a bit of prior training. Yet here was the orphan, the unknown. He had seemingly grown at the same pace, if not a faster pace than Sasuke had. Yet at the same time he had mediocre prior training, mediocre training over the course of three years, surely Jiraiya didn't teach him how to use puppets. That was when it all came crashing down.

_Journals..._

Naruto had learned everything from Sasori's journals. His change in personality, him not rushing off after Sasuke. The boy was practically asking him to continue to work for him, the same way he "worked" for Sasori. To think that Naruto had likely learned all of this in the matter of weeks, no more than a couple months. Who else learns how to take down S-class criminals in a matter of weeks? Even he couldn't take down S-class criminals in a fair fight. They would likely have to be on his hospital bed, or they would need to have their meals in front of his faces for him to take a S-class criminal down.

Kabuto pursed his lips, well there was a bonus to this entire situation. He had always found Naruto to be one of the most interesting people he had the pleasure of ever meeting. Now that the boy was extremely skilled, it only added to the qualities that made him interesting. "Fine, what would you have me do?" Kabuto asked calmly with a raised eyebrow.

Naruto stared at the man before him for a good five seconds, that had taken a bit, it was almost as if the shinobi stood their analyzing his entire life or something right before him. Regardless, he got that desired answer, and that was what he hoped for. "Alright, just because Sasori trusted you doesn't mean I completely trust you. That being said... you are the only resource I have." Naruto began resisting the urge to grind his teeth at the end of that statement.

"I am new to the reality of the shinobi world, I will admit that, however I am working on changing that. One of the things I have learned from-" Naruto was cut off by Kabuto with a small smile.

"Sasori."

Naruto paused and stared at the white haired shinobi. "Yes... Sasori, he said that the most valuable tool for a shinobi was information. The next most valuable tool was resources. People fall into resources in his book, and well his book is really the only serious outline I have ever had to go by my entire career. I knew three jutsu in my entire arsenal up until a week or so ago where I taught myself puppeteering. One of the said techniques, I had to steal." Naruto grit his teeth, those were not his most pleasant thoughts. "Anyways, I need you to be my resource, and gather information for me." Naruto said calmly after he finished his little speech.

Kabuto if he was being honest with himself was very impressed. A week to learn puppeteering? It was obvious that the boy must have abused the shadow clone training, and it only solidified this being the right choice in choosing to follow Naruto. Not to mention, if he ever found someone better, he could always leave right? "Alright, where should I start?" Kabuto said calmly.

Naruto frowned as he thought over the information he really had, and what he was lacking before he shrugged lightly. "The Mist, it's close, and I want you to check in with me every month somehow, and I know that you have to know where I live." There was no question about that last part, it was no secret where he lived. He was notorious in Konoha. Whether it be for his pranks, or for Kyuubi, everyone knew about him and where he lived. He would almost feel happy if it weren't for the fact that everyone knew about him through bad things.

Kabuto could only nod. They were his new 'master's' rules. He was sure that the amount of time between contacts would increase a trust increased. He had already tried to kill the boy in the past, he could understand why he was being kept seemingly at arms length. The fact that he hadn't been stabbed yet was a testament to this.

Naruto sighed, moment of truth was now. He cut the wood cleanly through with a kunai. That was when he needed to watch intently.

...

...

...

Okay, he wasn't running, perhaps they were actually getting somewhere. Naruto ran a hand through his finger, "Alright, come quickly!" Naruto said. Kami forbid he get caught in this situation, he would get his ass kicked with all sorts of treason, and likely any other crime he was committing currently. Mutilating Hokage corpses probably counted for something.

He rushed down the hall to where Tayuya resided and quickly walked in slapping the girl lightly on the cheek a few times. "Alright..." he said quickly as he lifted the girl's naked form into his arms. "Told you I would be coming back for you, he is going to take care of you..." Naruto said it rather quickly, right before he handed the girl off to Kabuto. "Kabuto, you are to fix her into top shape alright?"

Kabuto wasn't in a position to protest, and any protests that came from the girl could barely be heard. Naruto then held out a Kunai, he was holding the sharp end between the palms of his hands, he quickly said, "Grip the handle, and I swear to Kami, I am not in the mood to screw around with little games." Yes Naruto was being a bit rude and forceful, especially since Kabuto had to shift an immobile girl in his arms before he could do anything of the sort, however once he did Naruto pulled the Kunai away. "Alright, that's all, now get out of here, and if you have one or two more people that are willing to listen to you take them with you."

Kabuto was mildly surprised by how intense Naruto had suddenly become, however he supposed the situation called for it. Kabuto was about to exit the room, before Naruto quickly added, "Get Orochimaru's Akatsuki ring, and any disposable bodies that formerly had a bloodline limit." Kabuto stopped and stared at Naruto. He seriously expected him to do all of that and escape?

Naruto however could read his expression right away, "Yes I do, and every second you waste here is a second you could be doing the task at hand. Now go!" With that said, Kabuto was off. He knew one thing, and one thing only... '_Life has just gotten a bit more interesting_.'

Naruto had one thought in mind as well, '_This is going to hurt...'_ He then proceeded to stab the kunai into his side, and crawl out into the hallway. He could pull the kunai out in a minute after enough blood began to pool below him. He could play the rest off as he healed fast. There was one thing that was a fact... no matter how he went about this, he knew it was going to hurt. He could only wait for his team to return now, and tell them Kabuto had escaped, and feign weakness.  
_  
Like Sasori said..._

_Deception, a shinobi's third strongest tool._

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Alright... To me a lot happened this chapter, but that is because I know the little surprise that is in the next chapter. Lets get down to business.

I expect a lot of you to now be saying "Naruto is overpowered" if you weren't already thinking along those lines already. Orochimaru's death is likely the cause, and when I wrote their battle I also felt it was very anti-climactic. My battles really just flow out on paper, I will put that out there now. I really have to think very little in order to make a fight scene between characters. Unlike Sasori and Naruto's fight(That was rather long, drawn out, full stages of Sasori's power.) this was different. Orochimaru was cocky, I didn't so much go into their entire fight, however I believe why Orochimaru loses is at least explained through the course of the chapter. His cockiness got the better of him, and instead of going for the killing blow when he had the chance, he opted to drag out the fight, and Naruto found a way to make a come back during that time. Then with the use of one of Naruto's already given tools, he was able to cut Orochimaru clean open due to his bad choice in weapon(virtually anything metal.)

Now I know that Orochimaru has shown to be far stronger than that, and I will say again, he was caught off guard and was cocky. In truth, he wasn't taking Naruto that seriously in the manga until he sprouted four tails. I doubt Orochimaru would take him that seriously if he wasn't using Kyuubi's chakra at all. Puppeteering or not.

So Orochimaru's death came, and no I don't intend for him to ever come back. Another reason for the death was it really opened up two things that I haven't seen done before(one of them is done often, just its always done horribly.) Orochimaru was also not going to play a big part if any part in this story anyways. So wasting him now really didn't effect anything in the story, besides building up Naruto, and building a few characters in the story.

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Now you all know why I asked about Kabuto. **Please in a review tell me if I did his character justice, I hope I did.** Anyways yeah... I got mixed reviews from people about Kabuto, some people said he was interesting, some people hate him, some said I should just turn him into a puppet. However when it came down to it, I felt that this fit where I wanted to go with the story best. So yes Kabuto will become a bigger character than you see him in most fanfiction. I will try my best to stay true to his personality, and as such you will find some interesting thoughts as I tried to show in this chapter. Kabuto is a smart shinobi with useful talents, however I called him a title that I feel fits him perfectly(especially in this case.) "The Betrayer."

I think you will all agree with me that the said title fits Kabuto more than anyone else in the series.(Yes more than Sasuke, Madara, and Orochimaru. Kabuto has betrayed Sasori, Konoha, and in this story Orochimaru.)

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Tayuya... Gasp! Shes back!

I think some people are going to like this fact. I haven't really ever found a Tayuya hater out there. I decided to make her a bigger character in this story for several reasons. One she is useful. Two, she to me is one of the more interesting characters in the series due to some traits she showed during her brief screen time.

I wont reveal much about and changes made to her, they really aren't that severe though. Nothing that highly effects her, just what I think would happen to her character given three years time under Orochimaru's wing.

People may moan and groan about bringing back dead people. Moan and groan then, because while articles and what not say Tayuya is deceased, Temari cut down a forest, and Tayuya was probably under a hundred logs. Burried alive doesn't count as dead in my book. I don't think they ever had Shikamaru and Temari actually go over and check Tayuya. Anyways her death will be explained later in full detail.

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I had more I was going to answer, but nvm. onto the two most important questions(**Please everyone answer truthfully and honestly with the first question, and... yeah answer it...)**

**x**

**One: Does my writing make me come off as if I have a hatred for women? Or that I am sexist or something along those lines? I got that in a PM, and now I am genuinely curious. I wanted to play it off like, 'Maybe this guy just doesn't understand what I was trying to do.' However I am curious. I know I didn't make Ino too appealing in Soul of the Sword, but then he said I was also doing it with Ayame, and made her seem like a troll under a bridge. Now I know you are not supposed to take flames seriously, however I don't consider this a complete flame, especially since I used to respect the guys judgement when it came to things such as these. **

**SO PLEASE, ANSWER THIS QUESTION AT LEAST, I REALLY WANT TO KNOW EVERYONE'S OPINION.**

If you say yes, can you please put context clues. I know Tayuya being naked on the table getting poked at is likely going to come up...

**x**

**Two: Would you continue to read this story if some thirty chapters in, another time skip happens, and Naruto leaves the Naruto continent. (No he doesn't go to anywhere like Bleach or anything like that.) same time area, but the place would be fairly OC. Similar as to how Demon country is off the map, well this would also be off the map, and would be a completely OC area.**

**I as curious because I am plotting a time skip, however I don't want to write something that no one really wants to read.**

**So would you read it? Yes? No? leave a review response explaining why.**

**x**

**Till then, have fun everyone, happy Thanksgiving.**

**(Yes a bit longer than normal AN, my apologies, there were just things I felt that needed to be said :(... its still an 8k chapter though :D.)  
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	5. Could This Be Out Of Line?

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**I am just making Ryo as a currency equal the same amount as a US dollar. This is just so I don't have to whip out the calculator and google every time I have to input a number into my story.**

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To say that Naruto was comfortable with the situation would be a lie. It was supposed to be simple, go in, get the bodies, get out. Yet, it seemed that fate had other plans for Uzumaki Naruto. He went into the the base finding what he wanted and then some. He ended up befriending a traitor, saving a girl's life, and stabbing himself. It wasn't that bad though, this situation could be worse he assumed. The thing that just really bothered him was what happened after he had stabbed himself.

His team had come up to him moments later with Sasuke Uchiha in hand. They said that the black haired boy that was watching his battle with Orochimaru went on ahead and ended up getting the jump on Sasuke. The boy appeared to be going for the killing blow, and he would have succeeded if the combined help of Sakura, Ino, and Tenzo hadn't stopped the boy. Naruto didn't know what to think, he certainly didn't think that Sasuke would have been caught by some random boy, but perhaps Sasuke hadn't advanced as much as he originally thought.

The boy Sai was heavily injured during the battle. It appeared that Sasuke now healed faster than the normal human since after a nights rest all of his bruises and cuts had vanished. Sai was currently being carried by Sakura or Ino, depending on the time. They all would have rather had Naruto carry Sai seeing as how he was more physically fit then the two of them, however he just said that his "wound" was still hurting. It was something that none of them could really argue, they could question why he wasn't limping, or holding his side, but than he could just retort "I'm sorry I didn't know you were an expert on being stabbed in the side of the chest, and knowing how much pain I should be in."

The truth was he didn't want to be bothered, or bother with carrying Sai, especially when the said boy who was obviously capable just stood to the side and allowed him to try and fight Orochimaru by himself.

Naruto sighed they were currently approaching on a town on the way back from the Sannin's hideout. Sasuke was obviously in a sour mood, and his eyes were constantly darting around almost as if he was looking for an escape route. Luckily Sakura hadn't noticed, or else she would have been hurt. It was almost like his team three years ago, Sakura kept on trying to get Sasuke to talk and continued to ask him why he left Konoha. The said Uchiha always opted to just stay silent when asked. It was fairly obvious to anyone that the pink haired girl was getting on the boys nerves. Luckily, Naruto wasn't just anyone, and he could see from his former best friend that the boy had an underlying smirk that enjoyed the attention that the girl was giving him.

The town they were approaching on was about half way to Konoha, it was a fun town. It was as if the people that lived there considered life a party, some called it the town that never slept. If Tanzaku town had a baby brother, or a little son, this town was it. Kenzaku town was certainly smaller, probably half as big in size when compared to Tanzaku town. Although, for what it lacked in size, it made up for it in events and activities that were occasionally held in the town.

The town was full of people at all times of the day. The streets were always littered, even at the late hours of the night, even Konoha couldn't pull off a feat such. Naruto actually loved the place for many reasons. One of them was it seemed that the people in places out of Konoha didn't know of his special situation, so he could really just be himself. The second reason was more due to reading Sasori's journals, since the town was crowded it made it easy to disappear. This was a quality that Sasori seemed to love about certain towns in his journals, but in truth when Naruto thought about it himself, he knew that it was a quality he liked in towns as well, with or without Sasori's input.

Naruto had taken his time walking not really asking questions, or paying attention to Sakura and Sasuke, or the remaining members of his team. He really didn't want to talk about anything he had done, especially about Orochimaru. If he had the opportunity to hold off on saying that he defeated Orochimamru until he was in front of the Hokage, he would. When asked, he would just say that he deemed the information of no value since they had already retrieved Sasuke, and with Orochimaru dead, his plans suddenly stopped dead in their tracks.

Naruto of course supposed that there were bonuses to telling his team up front that he defeated Orochimaru, but he didn't want to. He had no idea what that silent black haired boy Sai was planning, especially with not even mentioning that he had watched the battle he had with Orochimaru, when Naruto knew the boy had. He doubted that the boy was just a coward, but that too was always a possibility, despite the fact that he confronted Sasuke.

The group, much to the girl's displeasure, had chosen to stay at a part brothel part inn. Tenzo was a shinobi to the core. Choosing to sleep at a cheap run down inn in order to save money for the village. At least that was with he said, personally, he just felt that Tenzo fell into the category as the rest of his sensei's being perverts. If he really wanted to save money, he could make a giant wooden house. He wanted to stay at the brothel.

Naruto really didn't care whether he slept at a brothel or not. The reason the brothel was cheap was because of the yelling and screaming from activities in random rooms. The rooms always smelled like sex and cheap perfume. The woman were good looking, that was one of the bonuses to being in a brothel. He had been in many along his trip with Jiraiya, it was kind of hard not to go into at least one brothel with a pervert of his caliber.

The girls hated the idea, however it wasn't up to them. He didn't really see why they cared either, if things were even slightly similar to how they used to be before he went on his training trip, the girls will be constantly taking glances at Sasuke, and be too busy doing that to notice anything else going on around them. Now that used to bother him, he hated the fact that the girls would always stare at the Uchiha, and not pay him second glance. Now, he was mature, he knew he had a crush on Sakura, that was something he couldn't shake off, however he couldn't let that ruin their professional career, and if she wasn't going to give him the time of day than there was no reason to chase after her.

They decided to "Check in" to the brothel around noon. No one was there around noon, except for the select few people that were addicted to sex, and had sex on their lunch breaks from their jobs. It was easy at that time of the day to buy two rooms right next to each other. Tenzo said two rooms would come out of his pocket, which was really funds already provided for the mission. Tenzo and Sai would be in one room watching Sasuke, while Naruto, Sakura, and Ino would share a room.

That of course got a brief outburst from Ino, that was quickly squelched by a few words from Sakura, which Naruto was thankful for. There was no reason for a verbal war to start over sleeping arrangements.

So now Naruto was walking down the street, for one of the few times in his life where he got to relax. There was some big event going on in town, which Naruto didn't bother to find out about. Maybe the town was always like this? All he knew was the town was alive, and with the various games and contests going around filling the streets, and well he couldn't help himself. He had really had only one other chance to really kick back and relax playing games in the sight of people one other time in his life, when he was with Jiraiya to go find Tsunade.

It was nice for him to actually just go to the gold fish catching stand, similar to the one he visited when he was out of Konoha in another town with Jiraiya for the first time. Despite his recent changes in personality, and his bitterness to his former sensei's, he couldn't completely dislike them. Kakashi in his own sort of way tried to teach him the meaning of teamwork. Jiraiya had taught him how to live a little, and truly gave him a good time on their training trip, even though he learned next to nothing that would prepare him for the shinobi world.

He was currently trying his best to follow the rules of Sasori's books. One of the said rules was about clothing. 'Real shinobi wear dark colors, good ones stick to black and brown.' Naruto didn't know weather to take this completely to heart or not. Sasori himself didn't really need to even worry about clothing, just rags. He did walk around in a hunchback puppet all the time. However, not one to write off one of Sasori's rules, bits of imparted knowledge right off the bat, he had gone to a clothing store the moment he left the brothel and got himself a large over sized cloak similar to the one Kabuto had worn at the bridge. The only real difference was his was black, while Kabuto's was brown. He didn't particularly think that it was the best color he could has chosen, it turned him from a orange clad target, to a black shadowy mass.

Naruto walked up to the stand, now having waited in line, and smiled when he was handed to thin paper net. At least he thought it was a net... he was supposed to use it to scoop up the fish. The same rule as last time, no ninjas. Of course, now Naruto was smarter than the last time he was at the stand. He remembered flashing a hand seal right in front of everyone to channel chakra. Yep he was the king of smooth back then. He got kicked out of the stand real quick.

Now, he could subtly channel chakra, with his heightened control, and scoop up fish after fish after fish. The owner looked like he was going to a gasket, and was constantly looking at Naruto's hands searching for some sort of fishy technique. Of course when finding none, he quickly went over and wrote on a piece of scrap paper, 'Only three wins per player!' at which point he rushed back to Naruto who had scooped seven more fish out. He quickly gave Naruto the biggest prize in the booth, before ushering him away. The shit eating grin Naruto gave the man only served to sour the owner's mood.

Naruto took to the streets with a giant bear under his arm. Not the usual type of accessory for a shinobi, however Naruto wasn't just any shinobi. At least thats what he liked to tell himself.

Naruto didn't know how long he walked around the town, playing various games, always winning. There were even the occasional wicked people that would come up to him. Whether they be the hookers, or a man that came up to him and positioned a blade up to his neck. They were both taken care of quickly, the woman being told off, and the man being beaten down with Naruto's stuffed bear.

The light in the sky quickly fell, and soon enough lights from the buildings made the streets come alive. It didn't take long for him to find something that interested him, or should he say someone...

Uzumaki Naruto had lived his life always under the constant watch of his community. He was an outcast, and didn't have a family to watch out for him. He had done things that had left a permanent mark on the village, like sneaking into the Hyuuga clan compound, and littering their clothing all across town. It prompted the Hyuuga clan to increase their security, besides there was no reason for a eight year old to sneak into a compound of shinobi that could see through walls. Or much to the belief of the people, since he was the host of Konoha's most dangerous enemy, that directly translated to him being the said enemy. It certainly didn't make him the most liked individual.

He had done what was necessary to survive. Now many people when they heard the name Uzumaki Naruto, they would think of a couple nicknames. One of the names he had earned was essentially "Prankster." To him this was a partial truth. Yeah, he pulled pranks, he would admit to that. However to him he liked to think of his pranks as an art. When he was pulling a prank and causing chaos, he made it his goal to swipe anything of value that he could. He had been involved in some of the darkest corners of a nation since he was a child. He didn't like to think about the darker parts of his childhood, he liked to just write it off as 'It had to be done.'

However now, he was watching it in action. It was no longer him doing the stealing, the pranking, the conning. It was this female figure before him. She had been walking behind a well dressed group of individuals checking all the angles discreetly, and searching for the best spots to likely steal from. She knew she only had one good chance, and if she went into the wrong pocket, she was screwed. At the same time, to be fair, this young woman had looked like she had done this several times before, trailing them like an expert.

Naruto couldn't see her face or any note worthy features. Her figure was thin, but athletic. He couldn't really make out much more than that due to her attire. She, wore a large cloak similar to the one Naruto wore. The only difference was that Naruto was trying new things, he knew why she had such a large cloak on. So if she ever did get caught, or if her victims noticed that they had been stolen from, and give chase, in a place like this all she would have to do is discard the clothing and she was a new person. Not to mention, those cloaks can be bought extremely cheap.

Naruto passed off his bear to a individual walking by as he continued to watch the thief who discreetly stalked the group of well dressed individuals down the street. Naruto found it slightly odd the entire situation. He himself was a former thief in his own right. It was almost like reading a book about wild animals. The thief would prey on the civilians, all the while her being the hunter was being hunted by Naruto, a ninja. He had to give the girl credit though, she had noticed him trailing after her yet she kept her eye on the prize.

The thief likely would have stopped to comment under different circumstances, the problem was that her moment had come. She had her victim, and there was a large cross street filled with people up ahead. He knew from his personal experience that that was when she was going to make her move. Naruto stayed silent as he continued to trail the girl with one thought in mind 'Moment of truth...'

...

...

...

Naruto was rather surprised. He hadn't stolen anything personally since he was a little kid, except the scroll of sealing. Perhaps if he had been practicing as much as this girl must have been, then he likely would have been better at her. She was as smooth as silk in her execution. She had taken a folded piece of paper out of her pocket as she approached her victim. Than her hands suddenly took over.

She had swept up from behind and pretended to stumble forward into the group of people. She let her charming voice give a quick 'Sorry.' before she cut down the cross street, before doubling back past Naruto. At least, that was what it looked like to the untrained eye.

To Naruto he saw her hands quickly take the folded piece of paper and swap it in place of the victim's wallet. The man had quickly padded his back pocket to check and see if his wallet was still there. Of course, it wasn't but the firmness of the folded paper, and with it being the correct size, in the midst of all the events going on the man wrote it off. To Naruto, the man was foolish.

Naruto did a quick pat down of himself when he saw that, especially since the thief had walked past him. He knew the young woman was far more skilled than he was when he was a kid, and he wasn't going to stand for his trusted frog wallet to be stolen. It was during his personal pat down that he was glad for having such a childish wallet. The disfigured shape of the wallet made it impossible to recreate with a simple folded piece of paper. So when he felt the said paper in his pock, he just pulled it out and dropped it on the floor before taking to the roofs.

The girl obviously hadn't known that he was the predator the entire time, she was only in the middle of the food chain. It didn't take long for him, being a ninja to spot the thief from the roof tops. However instead of taking to the streets and confronting the girl right there, he opted to wait and see where she was going. One of the things Naruto did when he was a kid was having a personal check in or drop off point. After every time he stole something, he could drop it off somewhere and pick it up later. This was so in the off chance that he was found later, which happened on several occasions, he was notorious after all, he would be able to say "Sorry, I don't have your stuff, I don't know what you are talking about." Or what he liked to call it, spouting bullshit through his teeth, and then grabbing the stolen items later during the day.

So naturally a few blocks in the girl had cut into an alleyway. There were several wicked looking individuals in the alleyway, and even to his amusement there was the hooker and man that came at his with a weapon from earlier. They had made a large area of the alley their own little home. Shady individuals were placed on the entrance to the alley, and the back had was fenced off. No one in their right mind would go in there unless they knew what they were doing.

Naruto was one of those people that knew what they were doing...

Naruto quickly had taken to dropping down into the middle of the large group. He almost looked like a giant bat swooping down in a shadowy mass. The thugs, and thieves were all rather startled by his appearance. Although who wouldn't be? Someone had dropped down from the roof into the circle of them.

Naruto knew what he was about to do was against the Sasori's rules, and he really didn't want to break them, but part of him was still in there. The same kid that had jumped into the face of danger yelling "The hero always arrives at the last minute!" That inner kid was the one who told him to remove the cloak hood and cheerfully ask, "May I have my wallet back please."

This went against Sasori's rules for several reasons, one of the main reasons was Sasori's personal beliefs of the world. Anyone that is not you ally is a potential enemy, and even then those that are your allies are also potential enemies, so never make yourself vulnerable, and never give you enemies which meant everyone more leverage or information than necessary. Naruto removing his cloak hood did just that.

The female who had stolen from him hadn't revealed herself, or had handed back his wallet, however she did visibly tense. There was a long silence, while a large man with cut muscles and a scar that went from his cheek and down his jaw stared intently at Naruto. That was when Naruto realized it wasn't a complete waste revealing his face. He was 15, they were sizing him up, the signals the large man was sending to the various thugs around with his eyes was more than enough for Naruto to prepare for a fight. Of course, he would try to keep it non-lethal.

_Try_

It took only a few moments before the large man made his move. His large fist flung forward, aimed straight at Naruto's nose. It was obvious the man wasn't much for talking.

However no matter how much brute force these civilians could muster, they were nothing compared to a shinobi, a killer trained since childhood. Everything about his body was superior to these thugs, and if weight ever became even the slightest issue, Naruto knew over thirty ways to kill a civilian near instantly. This brawl, was equivalent to the play fights he would have with the students in the academy when he was six, an utter joke.

A pale skinned male swept up behind Naruto and attempted to make a grab at him. This of course only prompted him to receive an elbow to the chest, that turned into a fist to the face. The impact was hard, and rough, the man likely lost a tooth.

Naruto got thrown on edge however when the women started to enter the fight. Yep, being trained by the thoughts of a murderer, yet he still couldn't accept the fact that he may have to harm women in his line of work.

Naruto spun around grabbing a man by the face. He then lifted him up only to slam him down like a weightless toy. Yes, his strength was far superior to even the strongest civilians. It didn't help that Naruto was likely one of the most physically fit shinobi he had met in his lifetime.

The hooker that had tried to entice him to join her earlier had come at him with a knife. The said blade moments later was kicked under a dumpster, and the woman was in a heap on the floor.

'_All of this just to get my wallet back_.' Naruto thought sourly as he watched the situation unfold.

Attacker after attacker fell before Naruto. It was almost comical, you would think that after eight of them the others would catch the hint to not even bother. Oh well what could he do?

The final person to take a strike at him, after their leader had fallen was the female pickpocket under the brown cloak. Naruto had let his guard down... and the girl had been able to actually get a hit on him. She struck him right in the abs, quite hard too, at least for a civilian. However it barely even effected him, honestly it was merely an annoyance. The frustrating part was the fact that she had hit him, it mean that a civilian if she had the right set of tools, had the chance to injure him right there. Now he could try to rationalize it with 'Oh well if she had a fatal weapon, I would have been paying more attention.' True that likely would have been the case. However it was a lame excuse, and he knew it. He should treat every battle as if he could die, and he wont be walking away from it. The fact that a civilian had gotten the jump on him only served to frustrate him, and despite killing two of the world's most feared criminals, he still needed a lot of work.

Naruto grit his teeth in anger and delivered the girl a rough backhand. This was no longer about toying with the thugs, and messing with them to get his wallet back. Now he just wanted to get his wallet and get out of there before he felt compelled to use lethal force.

The hit had sent the young woman stumbling with a cry. He knew it was going to leave a bad bruise, and once he had hit her he felt a bit bad. He hit her far harder than he had hit anyone else, and he had hit their leader pretty hard. He walked over to a pile of wallets where his frog pouch was discarded. Of course not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he looted a few extra wallets of some money. The thugs had caused him enough trouble, and dirtied up his cloak.

Naruto left the alley and made his way back to the brothel. He had other crap to worry about anyways, for example his meetings that he would have with the Hokage, and undoubtedly the council. Then there was also the problems for the first and second Hokages and how to operate them.

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"What!" came the irate cry from the blonde Hokage in the room. Everyone that was just on the mission to go meet Sasori's spy stood there in surprise. There was also the captive Uchiha restrained by two masked Anbu. Sasuke was hard to read at the moment, he looked like he was having a hard time choosing to be impressed or seething in rage. This of course only caused the Uchiha to have far more emotion on his face than many had ever seen.

The Hokage began massaging the bridge of her nose between the fingers of one of her hands as she rested her elbow on her desk. The other hand was scrambling for something at the side of her desk, possibly hidden inside the drawer. "Naruto would you care to explain to me as to how you were able to beat one of Konoha's S-class missing ninja. I mean... do you even have the proof of his demise or something along those lines? Or are you just trying to pull off some stupid prank, because I am not in the mood Naruto..."

Tsunade was at a loss, she didn't know whether she should feel sad or keep a strong mask up in front of her shinobi. Regardless of the fact that Orochimaru was a missing ninja, she knew deep down that part of her still cared for the man. She couldn't help but remember the few times in her childhood where her snake like teammate had saved her, and helped her. She even had trouble coming to terms with the fact that the Orochimaru she knew was gone. She couldn't let go the fact that when she would look at that man, the monster he had become today, she would always see the same pale skinned boy that would taunt the two of them on their genin team. His presence, his constant growth pushed Jiraiya and herself to succeed. They didn't want to fall behind their teammate, and as such with Orochimaru excelling at the rate of a natural born genius, they all excelled at a similar rate. They became some of the best shinobi Konoha had ever produced.

The thought that this man, this shinobi that was often considered to be the greatest amongst the Sannin, much to Jiraiya's displeasure. Then you hear the news that this man had fallen? Yet more importantly he had fallen to the boy standing in front of her when he was alone? Perhaps she would be retiring her seat as Hokage much sooner than she actually planned...

Her train of thought stopped when a thud came on her desk and snapped her back to reality. She could only look up for a moment before her expression softened. Well, nothing says dead like a severed head. Tsunade coughed into her hand, "Alright fine, you do have proof, care to elaborate as to how this happened?" She stopped scrambling for whatever it was that she was trying to grab. She had quickly pulled out some gloves and put them on before examining Orochimaru's head.

Naruto pursed his lips, yeah... he should have thought up a better explanation. Now he was going to sound really lame, and really vague. So much for blending in, the old him would have been bouncing off the walls willing to talk about every step he took, and ever pebble that he stepped on during that fight. "Erm... I got lucky I guess. He just underestimated me."

Tsunade hadn't been looking at Naruto she was currently searching a certain spot under Orochimaru's hair before pursing her lips.

Naruto knew she much have found something that identified the head as Orochimaru's, what else would get that kind of reaction from someone who spent their life doing dissections and surgery of the human body?

Tsunade stared at Naruto with a frown on her face, "So you just got lucky... again Naruto, care to elaborate?"

Naruto paused for a moment. He now was realizing the annoyance of learning everything so quickly, and immersing himself in Sasori's books. The information was still fresh in his head. _'Deflect' 'Half truths are better than lies' 'Only give as much information as necessary'_ little sayings and quotes kept flooding into Naruto's mind as he stood there. Luckily, he was able to think up something that he would have probably said three years ago, or at least the tone he would have used three years ago. "Not really granny."

Simple, cheerful, and believable. However it appeared that Tsunade didn't like that answer seeing as how she began to pinch the bridge of her nose again once she had taken her gloves off. "Naruto, I can make it an order if you prefer." she said sternly. The tension in the room suddenly increased.

'Okay now what?' Naruto thought to himself with a frown. He was thinking up several different excuses, he could say that he saved some of Sasori's poison and used it on Orochimaru. That could work. He could also say that he used Kyuubi, but then he would probably be looked at funny, not to mention Ino didn't know about Kyuubi yet, he didn't know if Sasuke knew either. This Sai figure in here also didn't know, and he didn't trust the boy in the least. The only good news about the situation was if the pale skinned scrawny skeleton of a boy decided to say a word about Orochimaru's demise, he could likely snap him like a toothpick.

Naruto paused and chose to use the simplest, and the lamest excuse, "I tricked him." Naruto said calmly. Several shinobi in the room sweat dropped at that, and Tsunade appeared like she was going to hop over her desk and strangle Naruto. "I tricked him into drawing Kusanagi on me. When he had drawn the blade partially, I used his weapon against him, and the blade cut cleanly through his own body like butter."

That statement left a bit to imagine. It was a partial truth, he didn't say how he used the blade, he just said he used it against the man. He told them that the man died, but he didn't say that he was severely weakened before it happened.

Tsunade pursed her lips, she had thought for a long time where Orochimaru had kept his blade hidden was a severe weakness for a long time. However the snake had always said that it would never get used against him, and it often caught people by surprise so she never pressed the matter. However the fact that a genin, albeit a well trained genin, had capitalized on what she believed to be a weakness and then killed a notorious criminal of Konoha was unheard of. Even the salamander hadn't been able to capitalize on Orochimaru by those means. That of course wasn't to say that the Snake didn't get beaten around by Hanzo... because he had, but it was all just a big surprise. Not to mention he escaped Hanzo, yet died to Naruto.

Silence lasted in the room for several minutes before Naruto broke the silence with a rather blunt statement, "I want my money in cash..." he said calmly.

This statement was of course followed by more silence and everyone turned to look at Naruto, who in turn continued, "Well, I alone killed Orochimaru, so I want to collect the bounty." he said it with a frown on his face. He was new to the whole bounty situation, you could turn the body in to either some underground place, which usually paid less, or the hidden village itself. The reason for this is many missing ninja often kill other missing ninja for their bounties, and in turn they turn them in to underground organizations that collect bounties. This is so they don't have to walk into a major hidden village. However then there were the hunter ninja, what would in fact take the bodies of a missing ninja back to their respective villages and cash them in for a bounty. This of course brought in a decent income for the village.

However hunter ninjas do not retain the full bounty of a kill or a captured missing ninja. Part of the bounty, a rather large part is deducted from their capture or kill and deposited directly into the village.

Naruto however had happened upon a rare circumstance. Normally if a team of shinobi happened to kill a missing ninja on their mission, and brought the body back in for pay, the bounty would be split amongst the usual pay check for the teams mission. This of course was after the standard tax from the village was applied since they were Konoha shinobi.

Naruto was different though, he happened upon a circumstance that very rarely happened, and if it did happen it was usually only with a shinobi beating a genin or chunin rank missing ninja and bringing them in for further money. Naruto wasn't a hunter ninja, and he happened to defeat Orochimaru himself, without the help of his team. With these circumstances of Orochimaru's capture, there could be no tax applied to the bounty, and given to the village. No, this was completely, and fully Naruto's pay.

She didn't know whether to be in a sour mood, or be happy for the fact that for once Naruto would be able to splurge a little. Who was she kidding, her former teammate had racked up the highest bounty in Konoha history, with Uchiha Itachi being only a close second. Sure the Uchiha genius had done a horrible act, but he hadn't been spending years experimenting on Konoha shinobi, desecrating corpses, and murdering countless random shinobi before fleeing a nation only to return to kill a Hokage and countless people once again, then seducing the last remaining Uchiha to join him. Yeah... his standing as a missing ninja was by far one of the greatest missing ninja of all time, surpassed by few.

Not to mention the man had eluded Konoha's spy network for fifteen plus years, just to add salt to the wound.

"Alright... everyone here I will need to call you in later today for the council meeting. Cat, please escort the Uchiha to a holding cell with maximum security." Tsunade said quickly as she ran a hand through her hair. She might as well of had a giant neon sign with a big blinking arrow with the word "Stressed" on it pointed at her.

Everyone had left the room quickly after that, Naruto being the first out of the room. He didn't want to be asked any questions. Especially from people that were likely about to have a fit, like Sakura. No doubt she would yell at him for keeping things from her.

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Naruto gave a deep sigh of relief as he sat down at the ramen stand. It was nice to be able to relax, especially since he was going to be called in later today. He had made note to seal any sort of evidence that could lead to Sasori onto his body. Yep, right on the front side of his shoulder, journals upon journals of information were sealed, only to be released with his chakra. Then of the left side was another large seal, with five small little seals surrounding it. The five little seals held five standard puppets that were all fairly deadly, and Naruto was proficient with them. The large seal held a scroll that held all of the remaining puppets. Yep, he had a lot of ink on his body now.

It didn't take long for the old man to come from the back of the shop to the front counter only to give a laugh, "Oh! Naruto!" he yelled in excitement. "Haven't seen you around lately, where have you been?" he said with a large grin as he rested his arms on the counter. Naruto gave a small grin as the man continued talking, "Been lonely here without yah'. You just had to leave when Ayame was out of town with some friends didn't yah?" he said with a weak smile. "Business was goin' real slow without yah' around."

Naruto smiled, "Sorry Teuchi, I was on a mission." he tried to keep a grin of his face, but right now, today wasn't the time to be smiling. "So you said 'was' out of town, where is Ayame now?" Naruto asked curiously.

Teuchi gave a loud laugh, "Ah shes in the kitchen, hey you want a miso ramen or a few?" he asked as he began preparing a bowl already.

Naruto nodded, "Yeah one bowl for now." he said quietly as he continued to think over what the council meeting was going to be about. He however did catch Teuchi's pained expression when he had said 'one bowl.'

Teuchi got to preparing the bowl rather quickly as he called out, "So Naruto... did you enjoy the dance?" he said with a large grin playing across his face.

'What a loaded question...' Naruto thought as he gave a weak smile, "Yeah it was fun, at least the end of it. I wasn't doing much before that." he answered honestly.

Teuchi smirked as he placed Naruto's bowl on the counter before him, "Ah well that is good to hear." he said loudly, while he leaned in closer to Naruto and whispered, "Now Naruto I have known you for a long time an-"

Naruto was getting paler by the second as Teuchi continued with the stern father figure talk. However Ayame came in from the back and saved the day by hitting her father on the back of the head with a pot. "Dad, stop pestering Naruto!" she said in frustration.

Naruto gave her a thankful look as he began eating his ramen. That was of course until he took in her features. She was standing there in her usual attire, but now she looked extremely tired. She had bags under her eyes, and a large bruise on her cheek. "Hey Ayame-chan, what happened?"

Ayame quickly brought her hand up to her cheek and looked slightly annoyed, she appeared as if she was going to answer, but her father beat her to it. "Some thugs attacked my daughter when she was out with her friends! Can you believe it? We have lived in this village all of our lives and not a single crime has been committed against us, and then Ayame leaves the village for a few days and gets attacked?"

Naruto gave a weak smile to the irate father and offered a few words of encouragement, "Well hey Teuchi-san, don't worry, if anyone ever attacks Ayame and I find out about it, I will deal with them personally." he said with a large grin. Yeah that was something the old him would say, but he just couldn't help it, he cared a lot about these two. He then went to inhale his ramen while Teuchi laughed lightly and went to keeping the shop clean.

Naruto got ready to pay with a frown on his face at the thought of someone hurting one of the people close to him. It was a bit of a revelation, one that said he couldn't always protect his precious people, he couldn't be everywhere at once. He guessed that was why he admired the Fourth Hokage so much, the man had developed a way to do just that, a way to protect his precious people. A way to be ten places at once.

He set down the money he would normally give for five bowls of ramen, it wasn't like he was going to be short on money any time soon after today.

The moment he stepped out of the stand, a couple Anbu approached Naruto and told him calmly it was time for the meeting. They went to grab Naruto, while Naruto was currently paying attention to a cry he heard back in the ramen stand. The sound of a female cry, and the fall of a few pots and pans. It was nothing to be afraid of, she wasn't in any danger, he just couldn't shake the fact that the cry sounded familiar.

'_Son of a-'_

_Naruto had shunshined before he could complete his thought._

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"Hokage-sama, you truly expect us to believe that Uzumaki-san defeated Orochimaru by himself? He is a genin!" yelled an exasperated council member.

Naruto sighed in his chair at the front of the room and fought the urge to put his head in his hands. They had been going over this for the past half hour. Tsunade had already gone about explaining how he had defeated Orochimaru. Now it was just the old men and women that helped run the village being stingy with their money and not wanting to pay the ridiculously high bounty on Orochimaru's head. To be fair, he could see why, he wouldn't want to pay someone a 6.5 million ryo bounty either. However, that is what they get for making the man's bounty so high, sooner or later someone would have walked in the door asking for the money. At least it was him, a Konoha shinobi. He would at least be keeping a lot of the money inside the village.

Naruto stare across to the other side of the room. His former best friend was in restraints, waiting for his turn to be called upon and addressed.

It took another ten minutes of bickering before Naruto was in the high life. A shinobi came in shortly after with a case consisting of 6.5 million Ryo. Naruto's shit eating grin probably didn't help sway the council to like him. Luckily, they didn't have to like him, they just had to pay him.

It looked as if Sasuke was about to be addressed, when the talking in the room suddenly stopped. A old battle scarred man walked in with a cane. One of his arms were covered as was one of his eyes.

'_Danzo_' Naruto thought bitterly. Yeah... he knew of the man. Sasori had rather detailed accounts on the man's activities. How could he not, if there was ever a single person that was more notorious in Konoha than him, Danzo was the man. Where all of the Hokage's to date believed in the brighter side of life, Danzo was a firm believer in the darker side of the ninja world, and doing what he deemed necessary to succeed. Whether this meant slaughter or blatantly lying to reach his goals, he would do so. From Sasori's accounts he even went as far as to get Itachi to betray his clan, which was the initial push that sent his friend down a path where he would betray his village. To say he disliked the man without even speaking to him was an understatement, he loathed the man. If he was asked a few weeks ago about Danzo, he would openly say that Danzo was everything he didn't want to be as a shinobi. However now knowing the reality, he realized that the old man had some things right, he knew he would never openly admit that though. He still disliked the man.

Naruto stared at the old man along with everyone else in the room. Danzo coughed into his only hand before saying, "Before we move on to the Uchiha, I would like to address Uzumaki's unique ability he used to defeat Orochimaru. Naruto, care to elaborate as to why you have lied on your mission report, seeing as how you have left out that you are a puppeteer?"

Naruto's blood ran cold. This was probably the worst possible time for that to come out into the open. Of course, if he kept his emotions in check he would be able to just play this off. "Excuse me?" Naruto asked doing his best to feign amusement.

The council had broken out in whispers at the thought. A shinobi in Konoha, a puppeteer?

Danzo remained impassive as he stood there near the doorway, "My subordinate has told me that you displayed the ability to operate puppets, and used the to combat again Orochimaru of the sannin. One of those puppets was said to be Suna's Third Kazekage."

Naruto stared for a moment, silently cursing himself. He knew the next time he saw the ink boy watching him, he would just personally kill him. Naruto gave his best laugh, "Oh really, this is rich!" he yelled while in a fit of laughter, "This is about the money isn't it? I mean honestly Danzo, who is this spy that you are getting all of this fantastic information from, your source?"

Danzo's eyes narrowed, he just needed to push the jinchuriki into the corner for a confession, he would then be put back under scrutiny, there was no way he would keep the money. It was a winning situation if he could pull it off. It would also make Uzumaki appear as a liar forever in the eyes of the council. With the list of the boy's already impressive feats, it would definitely he beneficial for the boy to get that label plastered on him sooner than later.

"My personally trained shinobi, Sai. He claims to have witnessed the battle." Danzo said sternly as he gazed at Naruto with narrowed eyes. The statement brought about whispers in the council room, that were quickly shushed by Naruto's following statement.

"Seriously? If Sai had witnessed the battle, why didn't he help? If Sai witnessed the battle, why didn't he say so in the report?" Naruto said with a raised eyebrow. This statement set this argument to a close, and Danzo's eyes had a brief flash of annoyance. He knew he had lost, before the battle of words had even ended.

Danzo's last line of hope to put Naruto back on the spot light, "I intended to directly address the situation here in the council meeting. My subordinate had directly came to inform me about the situation. I will hope that the council will trust my word on this matter, seeing as how I have always provided valid information when it pertained to other cases amongst the council. Sai thought it would be better to inform me about the situation before bringing it up and giving the Hokage a hard time, or more paper work. Tsunade-hime surely must have already had quite a few papers to fill out with these situations alone regarding Orochimaru and Uchiha Sasuke."

Naruto was fairly impressed, the statement was rather well thought out for being on the spot. The man sure knew how to speak to the council. However to be fair, he likely had over forty years of practice. The man was close, but Naruto could spout relative bullshit and win the argument at this point, "That... is a joke." Naruto said calmly. "The only evidence you have is the word of your subordinate. I can just as easily say that you kick babies, rape women, kill men, and _killed the Uchiha clan_, it doesn't mean that you actually did it just because I said it though now does it?"

Danzo's eyes had narrowed when Naruto changed his tone when he mentioned the Uchiha clan. However he couldn't think of anything to retort before Tsunade quickly came into the battle of words saying, "Alright, Naruto you can leave now unless you have anything pertaining to Uchiha Sasuke's case. However from what I understand, you didn't directly participate in his capture..."

Naruto didn't need to be told twice, Tsunade gave him an escape exit. He shot a glance to the remainder of the team that went on the mission, along with Sasuke. The said boy was staring at Naruto with a mix between a small smirk and a scowl on his face. Naruto however knew that look as something else, his friend was in there somewhere. He was not the emotionless and cold bastard that Ino was ranting about in the brothel.

Naruto walked out of the room with a small smirk on his face, '_Was he ever any different?_'

_Naruto sighed to himself after his last thought of Sasuke, because someone else flooded into his mind._

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Alright fifth chapter is out. I admit it hasn't been beta'd, so I have briefly gone over this once.

My apologies for not getting to all of the reviews, which I have to say made me probably the happiest fanfiction writer, 104 reviews in a single chapter!

Totally acted like a little kid when I checked in starbucks for a total of five seconds... because that was when the lady next to me started mugging me :(

Anyways, I haven't had internet since I posted the chapter till today when I got back from Reno for Thanksgiving. I hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving.

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Onto brief comments on this chapter.

Yes I realize that Sakura and Sasuke aren't really getting developed, and the story so far has been highly centered on Naruto. I actually rather like that fact, but at the same time Sakura and Sasuke should be developed on a bit in the next chapter.

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Not a lot was really added into the chapter that I felt was very questionable.

Perhaps there was the bit on Naruto's childhood in Kenzaku town.(OC town was used since I wanted a pit stop town on the way back to the village, and nothing was particularly noted on the map.)

Maybe it is the scene with Danzo and Naruto?

I really just want everyone's opinion on what was done right and what was done wrong with the chapter. I ask you not to hold back, and please do speak your mind. However at the same time, don't openly say "Danzo and Naruto's scene sucked" without giving a reason as to why that is the case.

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You will get more insight into Ayame's character next chapter hopefully, and how I am intending to build her. If you guys have already made the connection in this chapter, next chapter will explain the actions.

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Onto the responses to questions in the last chapter. Alright, I'm not a woman hater! Awesome, nearly every review (besides one "kinda"). Good to know.

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More importantly, the OC continent I mentioned.

Alright, got a lot of mixed opinions on this. I have said this before in previous stories, don't introduce anything you wont develop or give it a minimal role.(For example, Sai, Tenzo, and Ino in this story)

So I have decided, and I hope you will all trust my judgement based on the current quality of writing that I will attempt to warm you up to this continent. It is still a ways off, (I have figured it to actually be 12-15 chapters actually since these chapters are coming up as twice my normal chapter length.)

This means that various mentions of the continent will be said in passing and what not. Try to paint a decent picture of the place for you. Then when the time comes, if people still are not liking the idea, I will probably scrap it, if they are liking it I will follow through.

In response to the "keep it in the Naruto continent", I would if it felt plausible to me.

However I have a feeling that you will really like the continent I will create. I will continue to fill you in briefly at the end of chapters with bits of information on it. Till then have fun reading.

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Question of the chapter: **What scene did you think was best in this chapter, and what did you think was the worst?**

**question 2: Do you like the fifth Mizukage? If so please explain why.(contemplating on how big of a part I may or may not give her in this.)**

**Read and Review :D**

**PS: Special kudos to **Score89, I originally had it titled that but... my grammar fails me sometimes. I didn't think about the H being silent... yep yep... brain fart, I know "A" sounded funny. Didn't trust my gut.

PSS: More kudos to goku90504 for a quick correction he was able to give me before I went to bed.(Note that the way I am forced to replace the chapters is going to cause this to queue up as if I posted it today. "Replace chapter" function isn't working properly for me, Idk what to say :/)

PSSS:(Final post and corrections, more found by Goku90504), I have done another 'Go over' of the chapter. However I am sure there could be a mistake I still missed. Again, my apologies, but this will probably flag a new chapter posted even though that is not the case.


	6. In My Life

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**Someone pointed out in a review that I screwed up (sort of). Asuma's bounty in the manga is said to be 35million ryo. Where as I made Orochimaru's bounty 6.5million dollars. That is a fairly big screw up, that I just intend to correct in this AN. I don't want Naruto to have 65 million ryo or dollars. So Instead I am taking a zero off of the end of any bounty already listed in the manga. (Asuma being 3.5million instead of 35million.)**

**That was something I just wanted to set straight, because it genuinely didn't make sense. So nice catch :).  
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Naruto stood on the roof tops above the city. He could of been looking around and enjoying the view of the Konoha night life. It was nothing like Tanzaku or Kenzaku town. However he wasn't focused on everyone in Konoha, he was merely focused on one certain individual. Naruto had been standing on the roof tops waiting all night for a close friend of his to be done with work. He had hundreds of thoughts flying through his head with the current situation he was in.

After a few hours of waiting it didn't take long for the girl to step out of her family owned stand, give a cheerful goodbye to her father and begin to make her way home. The girl had cut down a dark alleyway that lead into another street, which Naruto knew for a fact that her house resided there. However, he knew for certain that they would talk before she got there. So with that thought in mind, he hopped down off of the roof, utterly scaring the crap out of the girl in front of him.

Naruto pursed his lips and tried his best to hold back a frown. "Ayame..." he couldn't find the words to allow himself to finish the sentence. The girl in front of him had suddenly got her breathing under control the moment she heard the sound of the voice. However you could tell that in her eyes she was holding back some anger and frustrating towards Naruto.

Naruto ran a hand through his hair, he was trying his best to keep calm about the entire situation... "Why! Why the hell would you join a fucking gang and start pickpocketing people on the street! Did you not think you would get caught?" well... he tried?

The ramen chef scowled at that, but quickly covered it up by trying to push past Naruto saying, "I have no idea what you are talking about." Although that statement just made it all the more obvious to Naruto that she was hiding something and that he was right on the mark. He quickly snatched her arm as she tried to walk by and held it firmly, but being careful not to hurt her.

"Do you think I am stupid Ayame? I know how you got that bruise!" Naruto pursed his lips once again and stopped his yelling to say in a whisper, "I gave you that bruise." His frown was clearly visible on his face despite the dark shadows of the alleyway casting over the pair. Naruto knew he needed to keep his emotions in check, yelling would only serve to scare the ramen chef.

Ayame looked down at her arm in Naruto's clutches with a slight glare, "Alright fine, you know how I got my bruise, now what?"

Naruto felt like an idiot. Here he had been acting mature ever since he had gained Sasori's journals, yet his three encounters with Ayame have each turned him emotional some way. It was hard for him to know that he was the one that had hurt his life long friend, but how could he really go about asking her these questions? He wasn't the conversation expert, he rarely was able to even hold a conversation with someone. His proof resided in his shinobi team. "Well I need to help you or something, I'll take you to the hospital. I can get you in there quic-" Naruto was cut off by Ayame who said,

"It's a bruise Naruto, not a severed limb..." Ayame was annoyed with the situation, and the more Naruto stuck around, the more annoyed she became. However there was a reason for this. Naruto was always said to have a unique gift to always being able to brighten someone's day. Anyone who knew the boy, and by that, she meant really took the time to get to know him. She knew that it was virtually impossible to hate him. Thats why she was getting annoyed, she was getting annoyed at how hard it was for her to try and stay mad at him.

Naruto opened and closed his mouth several times before saying, "Well here... ummm sit down, I'll heal your cheek." he said quietly. He knew the basics of medical jutsu, and by basics, he meant the very basics. He doubted he would ever get to Sakura or Tsunade's skill level without training like he did to learn puppeteering. The most he really knew was basic medical jutsu, like how to seal a cut, or how to heal a bruise. Luckily that was all he needed in this situation.

Ayame regrettably sat down and let Naruto's green glowing palm reach her cheek and she felt a warm tingling sensation. It was soft, and gentle, and most importantly painless. She could feel the pain in her bruise fading almost instantly.

During the process of the healing, Naruto took in a large intake of air before quietly asking, "Why do you do it? Why have you become a thief?"

Ayame diverted her eyes for a moment, that was definitely not where she had pictured herself be as a child when she grew up. "Why did you become a killer?" she questioned trying to divert the question. Her own state was not what she particularly wanted to talk about right now, especially with the boy in front of her.

Naruto scowled slightly, he hadn't had many real conversations with Ayame, at least on sensitive topics like this. "Stop deflecting, why are you stealing from people? Did you join a gang or something?" Naruto knew he was being a bit forceful, he almost felt like he was acting like a mother smothering her daughter or interrogating her which was a bit embarrassing. He couldn't help it, here was a person he had known his entire life, and she had genuinely cared about him. He could count the people that genuinely cared about him on a hand, maybe two. It wasn't a long list.

Ayame sighed and pushed the hand Naruto was using to heal her bruise away. "Naruto, just drop it." she said calmly as she stood up to head home. She yanked her hand from Naruto's grasp, only to feel the hand quickly reapplied.

"No..." Naruto said as he stared intently at Ayame. His blue eyes stared at her form a couple feet away, the only thing connecting the two was their attached arms.

Ayame realized she lied to herself, it in fact was possible to get mad at Naruto. She knew he was only worried and wanted to watch out for her, but she didn't want help. She just wanted to go home! "Naruto let go!" she ground out in frustration.

Naruto however didn't intend to let go until she told him what was going on, "No, Ayame... you can tell me anything!" it was becoming harder and harder for him to keep control of his emotions in the face of someone he cared a lot about. He was beginning to realize the big difference between himself and Sasori. Sasori had lost and forsaken everything, it made it easy to care about nothing but himself. Yet Naruto, he still had people he cared about, and it was impossible not to feel guilty, to keep his emotions in check knowing that he was the person that hurt one of his precious people. His precious people that he vowed to protect.

All train of thought stopped for Naruto when he felt a hand impact on his cheek with a crack. He still hadn't let go, but the girl in front of him, one of the people that he cared about most was looking at him with barely controlled anger. He didn't even know if control was the right word since the said girl had just slapped him. "Let me go Naruto!" Ayame yelled as she used her other hand to try and pry off Naruto's grip.

Naruto gave a guilty look at the situation but pressed on, "I will but first just tell me what your problem is! I can hel-"

Once again Ayame had cut him off by yelling, "My problem is you Naruto!" The statement produced a silence between the two. The struggle between the two instantly stopped. Naruto looked like he was just informed Tsunade died. Ayame on the other hand looked guilty but couldn't help but purse her lips with the thought of 'The cats out of the bag...'

Naruto recovered after a minute or so in shock, and ever then his most intelligent reply was, "What?"

Ayame ran a hand through her hair, removing her bandana from her hair with a sigh. "You Naruto. Yes I have joined a little gang, and yes there is something wrong Naruto. No there is nothing you can do." she said quietly as she pulled herself out of Naruto's grasp. "I joined a small band of thieves that occasionally take trips to random towns and villages during festivals and often steal from the people there. Like you don't get it Naruto, Ichiraku Ramen is dying Naruto. Me and my dad care about you a lot, and we have always enjoyed and loved your company, but do you seriously think you are good for business Naruto?"

Naruto knew the answer was no, he was probably the top five disliked people in the village, he couldn't be good for business. He just couldn't believe he hadn't realized that till now.

"We were thankful all these years that you had such an appetite Naruto. Have you really ever seen anyone else in our stand other than people that you talk to Naruto? Naruto you are our greatest customer because you are nearly our only customer. We were getting by when you were in the village, eating four to five bowls per meal. You teacher from the academy often stopped by as well, but he didn't eat more than a bowl or two. However then you left on your training trip..."

Naruto pursed his lips and closed his eyes with a frown on his face. After reading Sasori's books and journals so much, he wasn't a fool, he knew where this was going.

"Our business relied heavily on you eating at our stand as much as you did, or the people that you could get to come to the stand. However when you left, everything changed. Constantly seating you at the stand left a permanent mark in the eyes of possible customers. After nearly eight years of you constantly coming to the stand, well our reputation was nearly set in stone. So when you went on your training trip, and business slowed to the point where we were struggling to pay bills... I started to go on trips. I told my dad that I was going on trips to look for different foods to reinvent the Ichiraku Ramen Bar... in order to possibly bring in more customers, or new customers."

Under different circumstances Naruto likely would have been mad at that idea, but in the full scale of the situation, who was he to tell them what they could and couldn't do with their stand?

"At least, I told him the trips were for exploring for different foods. I would go with a couple girls in the village to various towns and gamble. However as gambling naturally is, it is purely a game of chance. When I lost, I had to find something else to do to bring in money to support the stand. So I along with one of my friends joined a small band of thieves to make money. Through stealing I made more than enough to get by, and I could just tell my father that we stopped in one of the "Zaku" towns and were able to win some money gambling." Ayame ran a hand through her hair with a sigh, "But, yes Naruto I do have a bit of a problem with you. I'm mad. Me and my dad had relied so much on you for a source of income that it ended up in nearly being our downfall. I'm not going to put the blame on you, and saying it is all your fault. However my situation has put my in this position, I didn't grow up saying I wanted to be a thief, or join a band of them. I wanted to be a world renowned chef. Now I can't hold you accountable for what happened to my family, but don't expect me not to be bitter about the situation. We are in a bad place economically because we cared about a nice kid, and didn't want him to starve."

As Naruto stood there listening to Ayame he began to feel more and more guilty. Who knew that his presence alone could be such a negative impact on a family. He now felt like he truly knew why people don't associate themselves with him. "Well... like what do you wish that like you wish you... never saw me again?" Naruto asked with a frown as he continued to get caught on his words, using "like" as a crutch to get through the question. It hurt, all of this situation, knowing that he had that sort of impact on lives.

Ayame calmed the moment Naruto asked his question. She had asked it to herself thousands of times over the past three years, and she took going for the truth. "Honestly... at times, yes I do. I love you Naruto, you are like family to us but... I can't help but feel if we didn't take you in, I wouldn't have to be doing what I am now. I know it sounds selfish... but I don't want to have to live my life pulling the slack for the business because of you you at times. I mean yes, I would miss you Naruto, but you have to understand that being close to you is hard on me, on my dad, on our bar..." She left the statement open, she didn't want to hurt Naruto, but she wasn't just going to stand there and act like everything was fine when it wasn't. Even if it did hurt him a bit. However looking into his hurt filled eyes was not one of the things she was counting on having to do after she said that. Ayame averted her eyes from Naruto, and quickly made her way out of the other side of the alley.

Just as she was leaving, Naruto looked up, doing his best to keep his pain filled eyes from showing. "Ayame!" he yelled out to her, at which point she paused and turned around to take a look at Naruto. Naruto took in a deep breath and said " No, its not selfish at all, you are right... so... this will be the last time you will ever see me again."

Ayame's eyes widened momentarily as she looked at Naruto's figure, but it was no use. True to his occupation, Naruto vanished in a second, all that remained was the dark alleyway and a minor gust that blew away a few pieces of paper down the alley in the windless night.

Naruto sighed as he flipped through page after page of history books on the First and Second Hokages. He highly disliked the library despite recently enjoying reading books and journals. Well... that was a lie, he enjoyed reading Sasori's journals. The majority of the crap in these books in front of him were all carbon copies of each other. While Sasori's was completely original and had the gritty realism and personal thoughts that made the read all the more fascinating... and dark.

Naruto found some things out recently. It had been nearly a month since he had confronted Ayame, since Sasuke had been back... even though the times that he saw the Uchiha, he was being trailed by a squad of Anbu at all times. They had removed him from jail since a psych test had proven that Sasuke in fact did not have it in him to kill. Something that Naruto personally found remarkable after staying with Orochimaru for years. His ex best friend had gone years, without killing. It honestly made him question if he would be able to kill his brother when the time came.

Now if anyone was ever going to say puppeteering is easy, or using the human puppets were a piece of cake... well that person was an idiot. The problem with puppeteering, or specifically human puppets was how they operated. The human puppet retained the ability to manipulate chakra and use any abilities it had while it was alive. Now this was all fine and dandy with the Kazekage. All you have to do with him is have him channel his chakra to manipulate the magnetic field he could create. However with the Shodaime and the Nidaime, it was significantly harder. While the Shodaime had all of his unique wood jutsu's listed in books, which was purely due to the fact that everyone assumed the last wood users had died. Tenzo being the last one, and not many people knew about him period. So the Shodaime was rather simple, the way the ability was used was already listed in various books.

The Nidaime on the other hand was a pain in the ass. He was just a world renowned water jutsu user, so Naruto found himself going through history books and books on water jutsu. It was tiring and frustrating. Having to write down all the different seal patterns and memorize them, learn about the vaguely mentioned single seals that the Nidaime utilized. The single seals, were important though, they allowed jutsus to be used with just a single seal, instead of say forty seals for the water dragon jutsu.

Naruto ran a hand through his hair and sighed, only to hear the call of his name. "Naruto?" it was a surprised call of his teammate Sakura. Naruto gave her a weak smile, his mood had been rather shitty and down the past month. It was hard knowing that his association with anyone could royally screw up their lives so badly.

"Hey Sakura..." he said quietly as he flipped passed yet another useless page in the book he was currently looking for.

Sakura was looking like she was watching a monkey doing back flips. She tilted her head to the side slightly, "What are you doing?" she questioned with a raised eyebrow. It was almost comical how confused she appeared to be when it came to the situation before her.

Naruto pursed his lips, and for once instead of getting annoyed by the fact that someone was underestimating him, or shocked by him actually studying, he couldn't help but be amused. "Sakura what are Libraries?"

Sakura, much again to Naruto's amusement looked puzzled for a moment, before she stated quietly, "Libraries have books..."

Naruto nodded and picked up a book, "And whatever these books have, inside there is something valuable... So I am searching for whatever valuable things these books have!"

Sakura stared at Naruto, "So you are reading for knowledge and jutsus?"

Naruto replied not even a second later, "Your not making any sense at all." Naruto said with a smirk, much to Sakura's frustration. She reached over the table and snatched the book in front of Naruto and quickly skimmed over what he was looking at.

"The history of the Nidaime, and water jutsus?" Sakura stated in surprise. "Why are you reading up on this?"

Naruto took another book, that he had yet to skim over out of the piles, "You can't be greatest without surpassing the greats, thats what I always say..." Naruto said, now once again absorbed in a book flipping page after page skimming through it.

Sakura paused as she flipped a couple pages in the book in her hand, "What? No you don't..." she said with a frown on her face as she stared at Naruto.

Naruto looked up at her with a smirk, thinking of a way to counter what she said, which was in fact the truth, "Right... well if anybody ever listened to me when I talk, they would likely hear me say that." Naruto resisted the urge to flinch once he said that, he was being an ass. His personality had been growing more bitter... more of a jerk. Whether it be what happened when he encountered Ayame or the books, he really just wanted to be left alone. He practically had Sasori's books memorized front to back by now. They were near useless to him now after knowing all the information by heart, if they weren't so important by sentimental means to his success so far, he likely would have burried them.

Sakura sighed and dropped his book back on the table, and opened her own book as she sat across from him. Naruto looked up briefly to watch her, his crush, and probably his best friend. Naruto noticed her book, rather basic, _The Human Body_ which to him was rather interesting. He knew there were far more advanced books in the library, "You know that there are more advanced medical books around here, especially when it comes to the use of a chakra scalpel and what not." He should have kept his mouth shut.

"Why do you know where the medical books are, better yet why were you reading them?" Sakura asked intently. However Naruto ignored the question and quickly did the first thing that came to mind when he couldn't think of a way to deflect the question.

"Fuck!" he yelled startling the various Konoha shinobi that were sitting silently reading their books. "Why oh why does every book on the Nidaime Hokage have to list the same exact jutsu!" he yelled again, only for a librarian to rush over to him to scowl at both him and Sakura and have him escorted out of the library. Sakura however, much to Naruto's displeasure was following. However they were both in for a surprise when they stepped out of library, or perhaps thrown out would be a better word.

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura said in surprise, while Naruto continued to stare at the black haired Uchiha. Leave it to Sasuke to save the day by distracting Sakura for him. That was until he looked around and noticed something.

"There are no Anbu following you?" Naruto asked, more intrigued than anything.

Sasuke appeared surprised that Naruto noticed that there were no Anbu following him, he had known that for awhile before he even located Sakura and Naruto, but he never expected Naruto to catch that so quickly. Sakura appeared surprised too, at least it appeared that way from the look she shot Naruto when he said it. "Yeah..." Sasuke began calmly, his discomfort written all over his face, "A variation of a seal used on a brand of Anbu was placed on me, that can be directly activated by a single seal and thought from the Hokage. The activation of the seal results in my being paralyzed and unable to talk..." Sasuke said with a frown. He definitely could have hoped for a better situation. "Anyways Kakashi told me to get you two..."

Naruto frowned as both of his teammates walked away, before he followed suit. It seemed like Sasuke was back, even if his loyalty was forcefully insured... so why did he feel like his own life was just slowly going down hill in Konoha?

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"Because it is..." spoke the sensei of Team Seven, "It's strange that Orochimaru, who is often considered the greatest of the Sannin was beaten by Naruto. However perhaps it isn't that strange, Naruto... you did in fact beat Sasori. I guess for everyone it is just a bit of a surprise with how much you were able to advance, and virtually no one knows your new skill set. My only problem is that I now have to realize that you weren't going all out when I tested you and Sakura when you returned." he said gesturing to Naruto.

Naruto smiled lightly, 'Oh no I went all out...' he thought to himself with a grin on his face. However his grin quickly faded as he looked over to his old friend standing at the side of the bed. "So what is going to be the future of team seven?" Naruto asked with a frown on his face. Over the past twenty minutes of them all talking about various subjects, it appeared obvious that despite all of them being older, not much had changed. He, to an extent still liked Sakura, who in turned still liked Sasuke if he was reading her face correctly. Then there was Sasuke, who while a bit more talkative, and less distant to people was still Sasuke. Then god forbid that Kakashi fell back into a training Sasuke all day cycle once again.

Kakashi looked up and cocked an eyebrow at Naruto. He hadn't been able to spend that much time with his team since Naruto had killed Sasori. In truth, barely no time at all. However what he did know was that Naruto usually wasn't calm in matters like these, and he didn't ask questions like that either. "Well... Team Seven as a core unit will likely be restricted to D-rank missions while Sasuke goes through various interrogations and psych evaluations. I doubt that we will be held up for long with Sasuke having that seal placed upon him, but you can never really know with these sort of things. We will be going through various training and teamwork drills, since we as a whole haven't gone on a mission together in nearly three years."

Sakura had a smile on her face, the full team was together, that was something she was hoping to achieve for years. "So... what sort of training will we go through?" she asked curiously. She wasn't really bitter about the fact that Kakashi hadn't given her any training when she was younger, she honestly wasn't willing to learn until Tsunade came along.

Kakashi shrugged his shoulders lightly, "Well I haven't really planned it all out since each one of your styles is likely modeled after a Sannin. Sakura, you would likely do best learning genjutsu. I'm not exactly sure what I would teach you Naruto. Sasuke I can pretty much teach anything in a matter of moments, in which case I will likely teach him more lightning techniques."

Naruto couldn't help but throw in a, "Lovely..." when Kakashi stated that. He quickly made his way to the door, yep, he was right, shit was definitely just going down the drain in Konoha. If only Kabuto had run in another direction, Sasuke would be gone, and things wouldn't be going utterly crappy.

"Naruto!" Sakura called out for him, at which point Naruto quickly called back.

"No thanks, can't stick around, I'm not a fan of the lightning jutsus Kakashi teaches Sasuke!" He slid open the door only to reveal team 10. Naruto gave his best smile to them before leaving without saying a word. He had hoped that things would be different between him, and his team. However, things were the same. Kakashi confused as to what he should teach Naruto, which pretty much meant he wasn't going to teach Naruto anything. At least that was what Naruto felt. At this point, with Kakashi's track record, he could fairly easily hold him guilty until proven innocent.

So naturally, he went to a place that he could be alone, a place that no one went to except him... his apartment.

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Naruto sighed as he walked into his apartment. He had been expecting to come home to an empty house, however imagine his surprise when he came home to a former enemy sitting at a small coffee table he was able to buy with his pay from missions. "Your... here early?" Naruto said with a raised eyebrow as he looked around the room carefully before quietly closing the door.

The glasses wearing shinobi stood up with a laugh, "Yes, well you never said what exact date you intended for me to meet you, you just wanted to see me in around a month's time."

Naruto opted to stick at a distance from Kabuto. Anyone that could kill you without even touching you directly was not one to be taken lightly. At least at a distance he would be able to summon a puppet to get in the way to get into more open area. He still didn't completely trust Kabuto, but he couldn't say he trusted many people in full either. Actually... he probably couldn't trust anyone fully... which was rather pathetic when he actually thought about it. "Like I said... you are a few days early."

Kabuto gave a calm smile, obviously one he had practiced to do on command, "Slightly ahead of schedule. Should I leave and come back later?" He asked in mild amusement.

Naruto rolled his eyes slightly at that, "Half of my mind tells me I should. However I am thankful that you are here at least right now." Naruto said with a frown on his face as he leaned on the wall of his apartment. The statement of course peaked Kabuto's interest. Although in truth, anything about Naruto usually peaked his interest, because anything about Naruto or anything that happened to Naruto was usually unusual.

"Care to explain as to why you are thankful?" Kabuto asked with interest.

Naruto tilted his head and shrugged, "I think I may leave the village..." Naruto said with a sigh.

Kabuto chuckled a bit which only caused Naruto to shoot him a look that clearly said, 'Is something funny about that?' in which Kabuto replied, "It is just a bit amusing don't you think? You spend your entire life hoping to gain the respect of the villagers, aiming to become Hokage, bringing back your traitor of a best friend... only to go rogue? Rather anti-climatic isn't it? You haven't even committed a crime, you are just leaving after you defeat Konoha's most notorious missing ninja, and bring back Konoha's most desired shinobi. You... Uzumaki as I have told you before are interesting."

Naruto scowled at that, "Not helping Kabuto. Anyways tell me, what have you found out about the Mist? Also how is the pink haired girl, Tayuya?"

Kabuto gave his signature smile... smirk... whatever you want to call it before he began, "Well the Mist is appearing to try and wrap up their civil war that they have been having for years. Well... they aren't trying collectively, it appears that some sort of organization has come into town to offer it's mercenaries for a reasonable price, and with the amount of men they have to offer, it will be the deciding factor during the war. There are two major factions in the mist. The Anti-bloodline side... essentially, and then naturally the Pro-bloodline side. As such the bloodline side of the faction has far more quality shinobi, in far fewer numbers. Then the Anti-bloodline shinobi faction have far more numbers, with shinobi that aren't nearly as skilled. However the Anti-bloodline shinobi all follow a heavily charismatic leader, Kazama Arashi. An old war veteran for the Mist, former Swordsman, more bark than bite. The woman however is interesting, no name, no alias, all that is known about her is that she controls two different bloodlines and is head of the Pro-bloodline faction."

Naruto stood there up against the wall taking all of the information in as Kabuto carried on.

"Now its not just Tayuya. You told me to grab anything of value when leaving Orochimaru's underground hideout. You didn't specify what exactly was useful besides money and various items. However, I am inclined to believe that people are useful..." Kabuto began as he smiled adjusting his glaces as he stared at Naruto.

Naruto however scowled, "Well that is a nice way to say that you are keeping a slave, as if kidnapping a girl wasn't enough already, you kidnapped two."

"I like to think of it as backing an animal into a corner, sooner or later the animal will fight back or submit. Luckily, the girl, while loud was always the submissive type." Kabuto said with a smirk, which in turn only caused Naruto to groan.

"And she is loud?" he said with a sigh as he slapped his own forehead. "Great, I have a medic ninja that takes pleasure in his patients misery, and two loud mouthed girls." he groaned out with a sigh.

"Don't worry, they aren't that bad Naruto-kun." Kabuto said with a bit of a laugh, "Karin is a chakra sensing shinobi, she can sense the chakra of an individual from miles away. Her blood also has unique healing properties, in the sense that it can heal anyone the drinks it. She isn't incredibly strong exactly, however she was the warden for all of the curse seal subjects. I believe you of all people would know how much strength it takes to be a jailer..." Kabuto said giving Naruto a pointed look.

Naruto scowled and glared at the glasses wearing shinobi, "There are always other spies out there Kabuto..." he left the underlying threat lingering as he continued to absorb the information about his "Team."

Kabuto grinned slightly at Naruto, but said nothing about the comment, "I am happy to say that my experiment on Tayuya was a success."

Alright, now Naruto was interested. Every since he saw her laying naked on a table with various diagrams of her body scattered around, he wanted to know what had been happening to her. However he hadn't been able to take the time to check it out for obvious time constraints at the time. "Elaborate."

Kabuto gave an eye smile that Naruto thought was signature to his sensei alone, "In short she was my first successfully augmented shinobi. Her body is just naturally stronger than the average human. That of course is in short."

Naruto pursed his lips, "I'm intrigued, but save the surprise..." he cut in quickly before Kabuto could continue. Naruto knew that surprises were bad, unknowns were no fun, they lead to your death. Prime examples were, Orochimaru and Sasori. Sasori hadn't known that Naruto would be utterly immune to poison, and Orochimaru hadn't known that Naruto could just channel Kyuubi's chakra and have it act like a fast acting poison. "Were you able to gain any money?" Naruto asked calmly.

Kabuto could only smirk and hold up a scroll with the kanji for million on it. Naruto wasn't really impressed until Kabuto let the scroll free fall and it unraveled showing millions after millions sealed in the scroll. "The sound four were typically used as bounty hunters going after single targets."

Naruto scowled at the term 'used' however, who was he to complain about this much money? Naruto sighed, "Alright well anyways I am going to make my move tonight, so here is the plan..."

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"Boss!" yelled a trio of shinobi in the academy. Yep here were three friendly faces. Total disregard for whatever lesson was currently going on, the teacher Iruka, and three of his students went up to Naruto and gave him a guy.

"Everyone take a five minute break!" called out the teacher with a grin on his face

Naruto smiled lightly as he was surrounded by the Konohamaru Ninja Squad, all of whom had grown since he last saw them. Then his former teacher, Iruka. "Hey guys..." Naruto said with a laugh.

"Naruto you have been back for over two months and this is the first time you try to see me? I'm hurt." Iruka said in amusement. Naruto knew that he was just happy knowing that he was alright. That was why it hurt even more with what he was about to do.

"I'm sorry Iruka-sensei, but I actually came here to inform Konohamaru and his friends of a couple of things. So I just need to borrow them for a minute, but I promise we can catch up later." Naruto said with a grin, although internally he was telling himself 'Much later.'

Iruka sighed, but nodded his head calmly, it hadn't even been two minutes, Naruto knew the the students were annoyed at the fact Iruka yelled out, "Breaks over!" as Naruto ushered his favorite ninja squad out of the room.

Once outside Naruto gave them a small smile, "So what is this? I thought you all graduated the academy by now."

Udon spoke up first, he was still the same snot nosed brat... literally, that he was before, "We are supposed to report to the academy once a week for a che-"

Konohamaru cut him off by practically shouting, "Come on boss! Get to what you were going to tell us!"

Naruto thought he may of been annoyed with the fact that Konohamaru cut Udon off, if he didn't already know the information. After the defection of Sasuke, the first genin to defect from Konoha in god knows how long, likely since the Shodaime's reign, they implemented a system for the academy instructor to check in once a week with his former students. To keep minor tabs on them and their progress. It was able to show which jounins were slacking in training their students, as well as how well their teamwork is. If only they had that implemented when he was a...

He cut off his train of thought when he realized that he was in fact still a genin.

"Alright..." Naruto began as he knelt down dramatically. "Now you see, I have been itching to pull a prank." Naruto began with a grin on his face. However on the inside he couldn't help but smile at this moment. He knew this was going to probably be his last moment of childhood and acting like a kid. "Now I originally thought I would do it myself, being the master. However then I thought, what about my prized students?" Naruto said as he wrapped his arms around the trio. "So I have made a contest for you three, I think you guys wont be able to do it though. It is pretty much impossible to do."

"Yeah right boss! We are ninja now, we can do anything you even try to throw at us!" Konohamaru boasted while hitting his chest for emphasis.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket, "Well I don't know, but here it is. Pull off all of the pranks listed on that sheet of paper, and I will teach you each an incredible jutsu."

"Ahhh come on Naruto! How do we know you will teach us something good. It better not be like Konohamaru's stupid sexy jutsu or something." Moegi said as she crossed her arms with a frown.

"Oh, alright, I mean if you think that the jutsu I used to defeat Orochimaru isn't good enough, and you feel the need to question it, I can always find someone else for these pranks." Naruto began before the trio all stood.

"No!" they shouted, "We got this boss!" As Konohamaru pumped his first with a grin, that Naruto knew would have mirrored his own three years ago.

"Alright, make me proud, and remember first stop is the Hokage!" Naruto called out after the crew that was running off. The large smile that was in place on his face quickly fell into a frown before he shunshined back to his home before finishing the process.

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Ayame was busy, doing her every day job. Which had quickly turned into just wiping counters. She had come to realize that with Naruto around there was business that scared away other business. However without Naruto, there was just no business.

She now regretted how cold she was to Naruto in the alley, but there was nothing she could do. Especially on days like these where her dad was sick, and she had to watch the shop. However her heart skipped when she heard a rattle from the kitchen. Now three years ago? Wouldn't have bothered her in the slightest, she would have written it off as the wind. However now, a thief, a con, and unfortunantly a gang member... she was used to looking over her shoulder.

She grabbed a pot from under the counter, and slowly made her way into the kitchen only to find... a case. Just a silver case that had not been there before. She looked around for anyone and anything that could have left the case, even not making the mistake of what many people do which is forgetting to check above them. However she found nothing.

She moved over to the case and unfastened it, only to open and reveal something that made her heart drop. It was money, a lot of it, but that wasn't what made her heart drop. It was the single piece of paper laying on top of the money that said,

_I told you..._

_You were never going to see me again._

Ayame looked down at the piece of paper with a sigh, "Way to leave one with a guilty conscience Naruto..."

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Naruto was now on the outskirts of town standing next to a shinobi that he knew he would spending a fair amount of time with from this point forward. He only said one thing to the glasses wearing shinobi, "Lets move."

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Tsunade busted into Naruto's room in anger, "Alright brat give me the fucking pictures that Jiraiya gave you of me before I str-" Tsunade paused as she spotted a large letter on the coffee table. That was at least what she thought it was, then she had gotten up to take a look at it and realized a majority of it was gibberish except for three lines of it all that were bolder than the rest.

_Not One For Long Goodbyes_

_On My Way To Suna_

_Catch Me If You Can_

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Tsunade stormed into the Hokage office with the letter in hand, startling Shizune when she yelled, "Give me team Kakashi and a spare available cell! Now!" Tsunade than quickly began scribbling a note on a ripped slip of paper, and went off to attach it to Konoha's swiftest bird.

Shizune had rushed off, and it wasn't even ten minutes more before Team Asuma, Kurenai, Sakura, and Sasuke were all standing in the room.

On Tsunade's way back, she had to push her way through a crowd of people that were all complaining about various pranks being pulled all around the village. Painting the Hokage Monument, setting off fart bombs in the hot springs, leading shinobi on a chase through people's yards.

Tsunade rubbed a hand through her hair in frustration as she finally got to sit back down in her office and choose to scan over the paper Naruto had left behind, "All of you get to Suna as fast as you possibly can. Naruto has left the village. Sasuke, before you go remember, all I need is a thought." Tsunade quickly ushered them off after her threat to Sasuke was made. At top speed without breaks it would take the team two days to reach Suna, one day to reach the border of wind country.

She just hoped that they would catch up to the boy that she liked to think of as a brother.

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Naruto and Kabuto were a ways away from the possible team following them. They knew this purely because the two of them could keep up an incredibly fast top speed for a ridiculously long time. The two of them knew that they would reach their destination by nightfall.

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Team Asuma and Team seven, which was unofficially lead by Kurenai stopped the moment they had gotten to the border between fire and wind country. They had been running all day at full speed, abusing the use of soldier pills to catch up to the Kyuubi Jinchuriki.

Well... they found a jinchuriki.

Gaara alongside his siblings stood at the border of wind country looking over the Konoha shinobi, who all looked on the verge of falling over. "I take it that you didn't find him on your path here then..." Garaa said calmly with a frown on his face.

Kankuro had Konoha's letter in hand, and stated, "Well he is no where in wind country... We got the letter and searched any plausible paths to Suna, and checked the borders. Naruto hasn't been here."

The panting shinobi all were worn out, but they had to agree, Ino spoke what was completely on their minds, "What then if he isn't here? Where the hell is he?"

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"You know... it does surprise me that an entire country would name their bridge after you." Kabuto said with a smirk, "I mean 'The Great Naruto Bridge'? You would think you would earn that type of thing after you actually advanced a rank higher than genin." he said in amusement.

Naruto rolled his eyes, during there run he had finally gotten used to Kabuto's remarks, for now he just wanted to disappear. "Didn't you say that a ship leaves tonight?"

Upon the glasses wearing shinobi's nod, Naruto quickly made his way across the bridge and to the docks. However of course not before stopping to pay his respects to Zabuza and Haku, and stopping by Tazuna's house. He just knew that once he was in the Mist, he could finally relax.

At least... as much relaxing as possible in the midst of a civil war...

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Alright the chapter is now officially over. I have a feeling that a bunch of people are going to say that I rushed the end of the chapter. I sort of agree, but I wanted to try something different. Fast scene breaks between characters just to try and build suspense. I have no idea if it worked or not, but it was pretty fun to write. I highly doubt I will be doing it again any time soon though.

x

I have decided that Naruto will go through a bit of a personality change in the story. Parts of the old him will still be there, but it will be burried under a hardened exterior. It wont be a severe personality change like "Lets destroy Konoha." it will just be a slight difference, making him more mature and calculating, especially with his new circumstances.

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I hoped you enjoyed my idea behind human puppets that actually utilize jutsu lol.

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I can expect people finding Sasuke off the hook rather pathetic. However one, I doubt he will become a big character(at least for a long time.) Two, in the manga he appeared as if he didn't have it in him to kill people.

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So far I have liked to look at these past six chapters as a 50k word long prologue. A interesting prologue, but a prologue none the less. Now I feel that the actual story can begin.

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Har har, I paid homage to a movie, and a former fanfiction name in this chapter. Yay...

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**Alright questions...**

**1: Did you feel that Ayame was done alright? That her situation was believable? I didn't want to have her completely throw all blame on Naruto, I just wanted it to feel like a stressed girl that was backed into a corner. Did you think that her situation was believable? I just took canon facts and toyed with them by delving deeper into why certain things were done.(for example, her trips out of the village.)**

**x**

**2: What did you think about the chapter in general? What was good? What wasn't good? Please elaborate, this is one of those chapters where I don't know how well I did, and I want an honest opinion.**

**x**

**(Chapter may have had a bit more errors than usual, My beta is currently out of commission. Anyone that is willing to fill in and beta, I will be happy to send a chapter to them. Just leave an email.)**

**Also post any corrections you find, I am a horrible beta for my own work.  
**


	7. An Explanation and An Apology

It is with great regret that late at night as I'm writing this, I have come to realize something about not just this particular story, but a couple of my stories. I don't believe I will be able to continue them.

For the longest time, people have asked me, "Hey it has been a couple years, are you going to update Consequences of an Honest Enemy?" or...

"Hey I love Freedom Has A Price, but I see you updating other stories, do you know when the next chapter of Freedom Has A Price will come out?"

And the truth was that I always wanted to say soon. I always wanted to be able to release a chapter soon. Yet the truth of the matter is that when I started these stories? Started truly writing on this site at a respectable level? I was fifteen, sixteen years old. In addition to that, I was skipping school a lot and frankly just didn't care. I had the time to write all I wanted, without a worry in the world.

However now I'm older, and I've lived a bit more. I have a job, and I have a life and things that I am committed to. With all of these things? Writing has slowly been pushed onto the back seat, as well as other things such as gaming(which is important, and I'll get to that in a minute.)

Fanfiction however will always hold a place that is near and very dear to my heart. You see, I was never big on reading. The reason being, until about 6th... 7th... maybe 8th grade. I couldn't really read. I was the kid that was smart enough to get by in my classes through clever tricks and concepts, but I never learned the core fundamentals. So eventually a time caught up to me where I was the kid at the front of the class, called up to read, and it was terror trying to get through a single paragraph.

And even books like Harry Potter were too challenging for me to read even if I wanted to learn. So I resigned to reading comic books, one of which was Inuyasha. Through Inuyasha, I ended up stumbling upon fanfiction and Naruto. And it is through Naruto fanfiction that I truly taught myself to read. (The sad fact was that Fanfiction at that time was unique enough and cool enough to keep me interested, but the writing was bad enough that I could still pick it up without trouble.)

So the fact that I essentially learned to read on here, and through that, write is very important to me.

However once again that brings me to now. Fanfiction has changed from when I was younger, and writing. Now I know the majority of the story ideas and concepts, and a lot of them are no longer original to me, which was a big source of my inspiration to start writing. To try and find a story that was good, or a cool idea, and then try and improve on that idea.

I have essentially ceased playing video games, which was another huge source of inspiration for me. I remember playing Final Fantasy X as a kid, not being able to read, but being the first fully voiced game with an amazing story? I practically cried at the end, not just because it was sad, but because I felt so accomplished. I was no longer the kid that needed his dad to read him a game guide so that he could get through Zelda The Ocarina of Time.

And then finally, as I grew older, I started to really fall in love with countless TV series. I could list them, but frankly the list would just be too long. From UK shows to American television, to even some more obscure shows from around the globe. I've seen them. And they inspired me heavily in my writing as I grew older.

So I supposed I should touch on **Freedom Has A Price and Consequences of an Honest Enemy**? That is what you are all here for correct?

Well **Freedom Has A Price** initially just started out because I hit a writers block with Consequences of an Honest Enemy. I wrote myself into a corner, that I didn't know where to go from that point on.

What I initially wanted to do with **Consequences of an Honest Enemy** was to take Naruto, Kabuto, Tayuya, and Karin, and have them set sail from the Elemental Nations for an arc. Have them enter a Far East land.

This land was going to be heavily inspired by Final Fantasy 11's Aht Urhgan. With monsters, puppeteers, and very primal types of magic/abilities to expand upon the Naruto universe. The idea that there are many different types of warriors out there, and that they just didn't know it because they were so caught up in the wars amongst themselves.

And I was going to write in a big bad villain that was going to be reminiscent of the historical pirate Blackbeard. And it would be in this arc that Naruto ends up losing Sasori's journal, and where Naruto would have to come to terms with the fact that he needs to step out of Sasori's shadow. That he can be a great leader in his own right, and a great shinobi.

It is here that Naruto would rise up to contest this Blackbeard like character for control of the seas. And then only then at the end of the arc would Naruto return to the Elemental nations. This Naruto would bring back goods, and use his fleet to free the Mist from Tyranny. He would utilize his resources build a railroad that would go through the elemental nations. And it is through this that Naruto would be able to take over Kumo before the shinobi world would even recognize this terror that Naruto has slowly began to unleash upon the Elemental Nations. And his plans conflict entirely with Madara, and the Elemental Nations is torn as they are forced to choose between a lesser of two evils.

That was Consequences of an Honest Enemy. However a plot so grand in scale ended up intimidating me from writing it, and I just copped out and sent Naruto to the Mist. Yet since that was not my original intention? I didn't know what to do from that point on, and the story just sort of sat there.

So now **Freedom Has A Price** was born from my inability to continue writing Consequences of an Honest Enemy.

It started off with the recent introduction of Mei Terumi to the series. And I was browsing through stories annoyed (This is around the time fanfiction really started getting bad to me. There were far too few good stories, and far too many that I could "Read" their entirety while simply reading the summary.) at the fact that there were no Mei/Naruto fanfics out there.

So I decided to post the first one... or one of the first. I didn't really care. However it was originally a joke to me. Everyone has seen the classic "Kakashi doesn't train Naruto for the chunin exams, to insert White Knight here, Naruto becomes their pet and dominates the exams." type of story.

Well I just decided I would make one of these, but try and make it really good. Make the first few chapters really engaging and see if I could actually develop some hype from chapter to chapter in the early chapters of the story. And I feel... I was able to slightly accomplish that.

Then I moved into the chunin exams, and I felt that I was adequately able to showcase interesting, but intellectually pleasing combat. Something that was foreign in most jutsu flinging stories showcased on this site. And that was where I hit my stride with the story. I knew I hit something good with how I was writing, and how I was showcasing the main hero using his powers as well as his brain.

Yet I also knew as a writer and as a reader of fanfiction that I couldn't keep that up forever. So I decided to add a wrench into Mei's relationship with Naruto. One that I had always thought about, but never really followed through with because I started this story really with no plan in mind.

Now as you are reading this, I am sure you probably know how things ended up turning out as the story continued.

However two HUGE HUGE wrenches were thrown into my plans as a writer. I was cruising through, producing chapter after chapter quite consistently for Freedom Has A Price. And then suddenly...

Andy Whitfield, the actor that played Spartacus. His character and portrayal of Spartacus is what inspired an entire upcoming arc of the story.

He died.

Secondly, I had a girlfriend I loved very much, a fiance even if we were to get really technical about it, but we never were. Well it was during around this time that she died as well.

Both killed my will to write in different ways, but were potent. Now Freedom Has A Price is a story of grand scale. One that looking back on it, I never thought I could accomplish it. Not with how I write. I tend to write very descriptive, and try to paint a very vivid picture for everyone reading. And as such the story ends up being slow moving. And the upcoming arc was probably going to be more descriptive than I've ever seen anything on this website.

With the way I write? I wouldn't be able to finish it. Perhaps if I adopted a writing style similar to Lord of the Land of Fire, which is generally very dialog heavy? I may be able to. However I felt that the quality of my work would suffer as consequence, and the story wouldn't hold up to the image I initially created.

So that brings me to why I am delivering this message to you, all of my fans, and readers. I'm sorry.

As of right now? I don't see the story Freedom Has a Price or Consequences of an Honest Enemy being updated. (Or Soul of the Sword if you are one of the few that liked my poorly written test run of a story).

The person I was when I started writing those stories is just different than the person I am now. Right now, if I am going to write anything? Don't expect it to be too complex.

I will probably be able to struggle slowly through Forward Unto Dawn. Begrudgingly because it is similar to a story I intend to write and publish in the future, and I feel the practice is something I will actually need. That and the fact that Forward Unto Dawn has a plot that is far more linear than my other stories.

So here is what I can do for the people who really enjoyed these stories and were hoping to see them completed.

I can A: Leave them like this, and try to come back to them in the future.

B: I can give a summary of the plot, or write down the major plot points and the character analysis that would slowly grow in the story to the very end.

As for allowing someone to continue my story? It is unlikely. There is only one author I'd put one of my stories in his hands, and I doubt he would take it. And I don't really want to see them in the hands of anyone else in the first place.

Fanfiction being bad is just no longer an excuse for me to try and write something good these days. Not with how things have changed, and how I've changed.

So best of luck everyone, and I'm sorry.

(Lets hope this doesn't spur me into a fire of writing these stories. That would be awkward.)


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